Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before? ↗
The books people recommended
2020-05-12 · 961 points · 719 comments · 225 books named by at least one person here and at least 3 people overall. The number on the left is how many people named it in this thread.
- 26
- 23
- 11Dune
- 10
- 9The Black Swan
- 9Permutation City
- 8
- 7
- 7Fooled by Randomness
- 6Antifragile
- 6Siddhartha
- 6Diaspora
- 6The Dispossessed
- 6Ubik
- 6The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Julian Jaynes
6 here · 10 all-time · #144 overall
- 5Meditations
- 5The Fountainhead
- 5Infinite Jest
- 4
- 4
- 4Foundation
- 4Anathem
- 4Influence
- 4Blindsight
- 4The Beginning of Infinity
- 4Man's Search for Meaning
- 4Moby Dick
- 4Ishmael
- 4The Left Hand of Darkness
- 4Slaughterhouse-Five
- 4Stoner
- 4Foucault's Pendulum
- 4Steppenwolf
- 4VALIS
- 4Mere Christianity
- 4Discipline and Punish
- 3The Three-Body Problem
- 3The Elements of Style
- 3The Glass Bead Game
- 3A Thousand Plateaus
- 3The Culture
- 3Seveneves
- 3The Republic
- 3A Deepness in the Sky
- 3Children of Time
- 3Narcissus and Goldmund
- 3Exhalation
- 3Metamagical Themas
- 3The Mind's I
- 3Why Nations Fail
- 3Cat's Cradle
- 3Stories of Your Life and Others
- 3Invisible Cities
- 3Essays
- 3Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes
3 here · 4 all-time · #432 overall
- 3Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
- 2The Design of Everyday Things
- 2Snow Crash
- 2The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- 2The Art of Computer Programming
- 2Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
- 2Guns, Germs, and Steel
- 2The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Carl Sagan
2 here · 18 all-time · #49 overall
- 2Basic Economics
- 2Never Split the Difference
- 2House of Leaves
- 2Tao Te Ching
- 2The Alchemist
- 2How to Change Your Mind
- 2Blood Meridian
- 2A Fire Upon the Deep
- 2Manufacturing Consent
- 2Rationality: From AI to Zombies
- 2I Am a Strange Loop
- 2The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
- 2Debt: The First 5000 Years
- 2The Name of the Rose
- 2Quiet
- 2Propaganda
- 2Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
- 2Impro
- 2Feynman Lectures on Physics
- 2The Iliad
- 2Gravity's Rainbow
- 2The Little Prince
- 2The Vital Question
- 2Flatland
- 2A New Kind of Science
- 2Desert Solitaire
- 2Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha
- 2The Myth of Sisyphus
- 2No More Mr Nice Guy
- 2The Teachings of Don Juan
- 2Capital in the 21st Century
- 2The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
- 2The Master and His Emissary
- 2Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
- 2The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
- 2Cracking the Coding Interview
- 2Don't Shoot the Dog
- 2The Magus
- 2Echopraxia
- 2The City & The City
- 2The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- 2Fall
- 1Neuromancer
- 1The Mythical Man-Month
- 1The Righteous Mind
- 11984
- 1Why We Sleep
- 1The Lord of the Rings
- 1
- 1Brave New World
- 1The Martian
- 1The Dictator's Handbook
- 1Walden
- 1The Hard Thing About Hard Things
- 1Concrete Mathematics
Concrete Mathematics
Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, Oren Patashnik
1 here · 14 all-time · #80 overall
- 1Nonviolent Communication
- 1The Lean Startup
- 1The Power of Habit
- 1Nineteen Eighty-Four
- 1The Power Broker
- 1Outliers
- 1How to Read a Book
- 1Stranger in a Strange Land
- 1The Art of War
- 1The Innovator's Dilemma
- 1Feeling Good
- 1The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 1The Art of Electronics
- 1Accelerando
- 1Homo Deus
- 1The Murderbot Diaries
- 1Mindset
- 1The Odyssey
- 1The Blind Watchmaker
- 1Use of Weapons
- 148 Laws of Power
- 1The Dark Forest
- 1Thinking in Bets
- 1Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- 1The Gulag Archipelago
- 1The Elephant in the Brain
- 1The Wealth of Nations
- 1Nicomachean Ethics
- 1Nexus
- 1Candide
- 1So Good They Can't Ignore You
- 1The Lathe of Heaven
- 1Glasshouse
- 1Progress and Poverty
- 1The Prince
- 1The Art of Learning
- 1The Road Less Traveled
- 1Predictably Irrational
- 1The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
- 1Prometheus Rising
- 1The Denial of Death
- 1Skin in the Game
- 1Bhagavad Gita
- 1The Charisma Myth
- 1Economics: The User's Guide
- 1Behave
- 1Understanding Power
- 1The Intelligent Investor
- 1The Blank Slate
- 1The Wisdom of Insecurity
- 1The God Delusion
- 1Chaos
- 1
- 1The Logic of Scientific Discovery
- 1Solaris
- 1On Writing Well
- 1Proofs and Refutations
- 1A Scanner Darkly
- 1Axiomatic
- 1The Law
- 1Alchemy
- 1Open Society and Its Enemies
- 1Incerto
- 1Rework
- 1Unwritten Laws of Engineering
- 1Bullshit Jobs
- 1Getting Real
- 1The Technological Society
- 1The Great Gatsby
- 1A Pattern Language
- 1The Four Agreements
- 1The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
- 1Oryx and Crake
- 1Dark Matter
- 1Industrial Society and Its Future
- 1The Garden of Forking Paths
- 1Zen Mind Beginner's Mind
- 1The Revolt of the Masses
- 1The Art of Loving
- 1Psycho-Cybernetics
- 1The Machine That Changed the World
- 1Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution
- 1Unwomanly Face of War
- 1Normal Accidents
- 1Beyond Good and Evil
- 1Capitalism and Freedom
- 1The War of the Worlds
- 1Anthem
- 1Notes on the Synthesis of Form
- 1How Not to Die
- 1Player Piano
- 1The Moral Animal
- 1The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
- 1The Reality Dysfunction
- 1Robots
- 1The Story of B
- 1The Road
- 1Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
- 1Democracy in America
- 1Extreme Ownership
- 1The Egg
- 1The Broken Earth Trilogy
- 1Going Clear
- 1Democracy: The God That Failed
- 1Sane Society
- 1Showstopper!
- 1Food of the Gods