- Factfulness or
- Sapiens or
- Richard Feynman’s various writings
…but the most measurable impact was probably from something like
- “Strunk and white The Elements of Style” or
- “How to win friends and influence people” or
- “Oh! Pascal!” Or
- “the dictionary” or
- some specific bus timetable that enabled a pivotal moment in my life
I see your literality, and raise:
enabled a pivotal moment in my life
Like that time you beat Archimedes to the punch and moved the world with a cantilever?
To not just 'standup philosopher'-post: Gödel, Escher, Bach (already mentioned by another I see); Euclid's Elements; Polya's How To Solve It; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - clearly non-fiction, if you know cats. :)
Story time? Don't leave us hanging :)