Ask HN: Book under 100 pages that changed your life the most? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Book under 100 pages that changed your life the most?

30 pointsuser0x1d38 comments

Mark Cuban's "How to Win at the Sport of Business" is top drawer for me.

Dunno about changing my life the most, but this is what comes to mind, because it helped me accept my mortality:

The Dalai Lama’s Book of Wisdom[0] includes a page on the practice of considering each day a number of ways (eight, here) a person might die, towards dying with more grace when the time comes. I started practicing and found it an engaging creative exercise. It’s also helped me take better care of other living things, and to see non-human animals as people, too. I’m still part of numerous kill-chains (weeding the garden, turning the compost, walking, using electricity, eating plants and animals, paying U.S. taxes and benefiting from the infrastructure, and so many more), and I accept that as part of living.

[0] https://www.worldcat.org/title/dalai-lamas-book-of-wisdom/oc...

he writes about solitude being different than loneliness. knowing the differences and recognizing are helpful tools in life, especially modern age.

"A Confession" by Leo Tolstoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession

"The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Leo Tolstoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich

Also, +1 for Jiddu Krishnamurti.

About 128 pages, I've just read J Krishnamurti's Freedom from the Known.. quite interesting and potentially revelatory? Time will tell

I've been reading this book, and this book only, for the last year or so. It's mind blowing, maybe or maybe not in a good way.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

nearing the end of their life professors tend give one last lecture reflecting their life lessons. most people don't know it's their literal last lecture, but Randy was diagnosed with terminal cancer at 40s and he is an interesting guy I wish I could've met.

another one stretches slightly over 100 is The Brain That Changes Itself.

I think that at a similar sort of length are the lengthier essays in the London Review of Books, New Left Review, etc. Some of them impinge on rather controversial topics (and would of course elicit some disagreement), but they’re perfectly good reads nevertheless (though I suppose that that’s orthogonal to merely pointing out that I, rightly or wrongly, ended up influenced by this sort of thing.)

Tom Crewe wrote of ‘The Strange Death of Municipal England’ on 15 June 2016 (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n24/tom-crewe/the-strang...). I suppose that at the time I was broadly a utilitarian and had very évolué/neoliberal politics. This exposed something of a tension between them and I ended up at a rather different place politically. I suppose that I am rather a slave to, if not passions, pangs of guilt, and so occasionally a day or two will be upended in (often useless) politicking of one sort or another—a moderately important feature of my life. The other article that had some effect was Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘The Invention of the Indigène’ (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n02/mahmood-mamdani/the-...).

The second effect, I suppose, was to broadly influence my intellectual outlook: first, in a rather uncritically admiring sort of way, and then, beginning with the observation that the book reviews never mentioned the books, more critically: untranslated French is a good reminder that I ought to read French newspapers more often, but when will the historians be reminded e.g. to understand elementary probability? Useless chattering is an excellent pastime however, and the LRB was terribly good fodder.

Ooh interesting constraint. The Goal: A Business Graphic Novel[1] is just a little over 100 pages but very easy to read in a single sitting so surely still counts. It's more-or-less the same as the full novel, which is what inspired The Phoenix Project. For a book genuinely under 100 pages, I'll go with The Little Prince[2]. Just a delightful story that reminds you to focus on what's important in life.

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35528537-the-goal

[2]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157993.The_Little_Prince

"Letters To A Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke. There is a new edition of this work that now includes the letters the young poet wrote in response, long thought to be lost. I plan to pick that one up in addition to my Stephen Mitchell translation.

I have a Stephen Mitchell translated Tao Te Ching which I read cover to cover whenever I feel stuck.

Will take a look at this as well, thanks.

jonathan Livinsgton Seagull and Illusions Both by Richard Bach were very influential in my late twenties. In mY thirties I was glad I found Mastery by George Leonard. All three of them less than 100 pages to close to 100 pages.

This is Water by David Foster Wallace

I think the most attractive and memorable short books that spring to mind are:

1. Fear, Thich Nhat Hanh, helps you cope with anything

2. The Stranger, Camus, Nihilism/Stoicism

3. The old man and the sea, Hemmingway

Is it possible the TNH’s book title is “no death, no fear”?

I believe they are referencing this book: https://plumvillage.org/books/fear/

Yes, that is the correct reference, sorry I forgot the subtitle!

Thank you, placed hold at my library.

Thanks for sharing Mark Cuban’s book. It has some very tangible and practical words of wisdom that aren’t just masturbatory feel good stories in there.

It’s quite old and maybe overplayed but I enjoy THE ART OF MONEY GETTING or GOLDEN RULES FOR MAKING MONEY By P.T. Barnum. His insights might be about 200 years old, but they are in the exact same vein, and perhaps a bit more tasteful language.

Ted Nelson, "Computer Lib / Dream Machines", OCLC 03073731, 69 pages according to a library record that I found, though I would have guessed it had somewhat more than that. Amazing book that introduced the word "hypertext" among other things. I read it in high school and it was one of the influences making me still a computer geek N years later.

Both of these are slightly over 100 but;

Letters to a Young Contrarian - Christopher Hitchens

The Old Man and the Sea - Hemmingway

Both gave me an appreciation of the writers that led me to read more of their work which ultimately made changes in my life. With Hitchens his work on religion had a profound impact on my world view, with Hemmingway it gave me an appreciation for good writing and story.

The Art of Being Right - Schopenhauer

On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

"Letter to a Christian Nation" (96 pgs) addressed many of the problems I had with my Christian upbringing and allowed me to finally be comfortable with the idea of giving it up. I have been much happier since reading it.

Allen Carr - Easy Way to Stop Smoking

Showed me the easy way to stop smoking. (Not 100% sure if it's under 100 pages but at least not much more)

The Enchiridion of Epictetus

Efficiency by wallstreetplayboys.com

Best bang for the buck for people in early 20s

Who moved my cheese- I wanted to find out who moved his cheese.

Who did it?

I can neither deny or confirm anything at this point of time. Matter is under federal investigation :D

I don't understand the obsession with short-form articles and books. Pretty soon, they will become dumbed-down into tweets.

If you want to read something of substance, read. There are no shortcuts.

War and Peace is 12-13 "short" books.

Although I understand the sentiment and the lamentation of ever-decreasing attention spans, I'm just not convinced that verbosity is a prerequisite for profoundness.

I think the problem is that a number of books that claim to have direct impact on your life/career are perfectly capable of being written as a 100 page book, but are stuffed with repetition to pad it 300-400 pages. Reading through these can be quite a slog.

Also, to keep up with the marketing machine, the authors churn out a new title every 3 years or so. It would be a few news ideas and lots of ideas from the older books rehashed. It would be much better if the new sections are clearly demarcated in the book. Not sure if the author is to blame though. It might be the publishing house or a general perception among readers that more is better. Shelling out money for a small book might not feel as justifiable for some readers.

What ever the case, at least for the self help books, it would be great if the authors have the liberty to write shorter books. It would save the author's time, the publisher's time, the millions of readers' time, not to mention, reams of paper.

I fell victim to this when in my young naïveté, I believed all books are worth reading. There are a few books in this category that I want to read, but I value my time too much to read them.

Because a lot of books are filled with needless bloat to meet some number of pages goal, in an attempt to boost sales.

The Richest Man In Babylon was a really good and quick read.

Lessons of History

Letters to a Young Poet

Letters from a Self Made Merchant to His Son

Sections of Meditations

Sections of Seneca

Bed of Procrustes

Tao Te Ching.

And also 'Instant Zen' by Foyan (136 pages).

The Bed of Procustes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Euthyphro by Plato.

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