Ask HN: what non technical books changed your life ?

"How to Win Friends and Influence People." by Dale Carnegie.

Back in 1980 when I was 19, I was an introverted, anti-social nerd and pretty much unable to engage with people at all. My long-suffering girlfriend (I'm still amazed I had one - can't say what she saw in me, although I was nice to people) of about 12 months standing nailed my feet to the floor and said - "You really need to learn to get along with people."

Taking this as a challenge, a puzzle to solve (my forte), I went to find a textbook on how to get along with people and found HtWFaIP. Yes, the cynical can treat it as a manual for manipulation. Certainly the sociopathic can use it as the basis for their Machiavellian schemes.

But for me it was a lifeline, a way to survive in a world where you need to interact with people.

Questions like this always see a bit odd to me, because, as Shakespeare reminds us, "the readiness is all".

The books that really changed my life were able to change my life because I was in a position to be changed by them. Someone else reading the same books might have no result at all.

And, I suspect (but can't prove) that some of this is related to age as well; I can't say I know of anyone whose outlook has been radically altered by a book they read past the age of 30.

Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't had my life improved in small but significant way by books I've read in the past couple decades-- but the effects are nowhere as significant as those texts from my teenage years, and early 20s.

Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

Foundation Trilogy -Isaac Asimov

The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society of Pickup Artists - Neil Strauss

The Law - Frédéric Bastiat

Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein

Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - Katie Hafner & John Markoff

It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book - Paul Arden

Are ones that stand out. I'm sure a lot of other books helped shape my worldview though, especially ones I read as a kid. The "Tom Swift Jr." adventures, the "Three Investigators" stories, the "Nancy Drew" and "The Hardy Boys" ones, and those "Encyclopedia Brown" books all stand out in my memory as probably being influential. And later in life, I'd say Dean Koontz' work has had something of an impact.

"The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore. Much closer to the roots of productivity (inner motivation) than other books on this topic. If you liked "Getting Things Done" or "7 Habits" but somehow cannot implement the advice then TNH might help you.

On my personal bookshelf, next to my Bible, are:

Sun Tzu's "Art of War" - a fundamental philosophical work for life management

Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - well-known, enough said.

Felix Dennis' "How to Get Rich" - the best book that I have ever read about how the world really works

Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" - a timeless classic.

Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"

My elementary school books.