Reply With QuoteHmmm ... I would have to go with Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now since it clearly articulated a lot of things I was sort of intuitively aware of, but couldn't put my finger on it.
Now in my 30s, I have encountered two books which, if I had only read and understood them earlier, I think my life may have been much easier. On the other hand, perhaps the pain of experience without the knowledge within them was what made me realize their value.
They are:
Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and
Sun Tzu, The Art of War, (which I admit that I have only just begun to read, but has already made a huge impression on me)
What books have you read now, as an adult, that have given you insights that gave you the painful realization that you'd done things all the wrong way?
Hmmm ... I would have to go with Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now since it clearly articulated a lot of things I was sort of intuitively aware of, but couldn't put my finger on it.
Only Rimbo could make a thread asking what books have changed your life, and then admit two sentences later that he hasn't actually finished one of his own selections.
Blood Meridian.
Wraeththu.
Why do you hate life?Originally Posted by Angie Gallant
surprising selection, coming from you... ;)
"Forgive me, El Madkevin. I know that I, Rimbo, do not have your superior intellect and education. But could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?"
That's because by the end of the second chapter, it had already affected my outlook on life dramatically.
Hell, some people feel the same way after only the first chapter of How to win friends and influence people.
And I think this would be typical of this kind of book. They are books that are so transformative and insightful, that they alter your perspective right from the get-go.
Nope. Just thought it was funny. I tend to wait until I'm finished a book until I make a judgement on it, but I'm charmingly provincial that way.
Also, what's with the quotes? Were you writing those sentences ironically?
I'm curious how The Art of War has affected your life. Are you that hard core of a strategy gamer?
And my choice is probably Heuristics and Biases (edited by a bunch of people). If it had been published before I started grad school, and I had read it, I would very likely have gone into psychology rather than philosophy.
That's appropriate for literary criticism, but this isn't about literary criticism.
This is about manuals for living your life. And like a manual for a piece of equipment, you don't really care if chapters 1-11 and 13-28 inclusive are any good; you only care that chapter 14, "how to frobnicate the doohickey to make it foo more frabulously," actually solved your problem of needing to frobnicate doohickeys so that they foo more frabulously.
And how did either of the two books you cite inform your decision to create this thread?
Rimbo, if you also finish that cheese-moving book, you're qualified to become the CEO of a major bank.
Hahahahahahahaha!!!
I don't know which is sadder; that the book itself exists, or that so many folks in business seem to be unaware of the applications in their own lives.
Largely by showing me how I was Doing It Wrong™. Granted, I still do it wrong pretty damned often, but at least now I recognize my mistakes as such whenever I make them.
Besides, it's impossible not to sound cool quoting Sun Tzu.
Hundreds of business management books prove you wrong.
Troy
People have told me the Art of War is great for competitive strategies in business and relationships as well. Its advice is supposedly still good beyond the military context.
I have no reason to doubt them, but haven't read it myself (or the other entry in Rimbo's list). Going by the title, I can't imagine Rimbo before he read How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Like I said... I know I'm making mistakes as I make 'em now. Hahahahaha!
Two immediately spring to mind (remembering that I read both of these in my late teens/early 20s):
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn
and
Illusions, Richard Bach
later entries would include:
Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
Don't give me any shit about any of that, either.
Considering how much I read, I'm surprised I can't think of any. I guess boring public policy books and science fiction doesn't lend itself to transforming your life.
Also, Ayn Rand and Dale Carnegie should be treated as schedule I controlled substances.
Tarnsman of Gor.
Why do you say that?
Because those two books are on Gordon Gecko's syllabus for his How To Be A Douchebag 101 class?
Let me know when you've graduated to reviewing movies just by looking at the poster.
Just started reading that! So far it's very interesting, but also very dense. I'm working my way through it pretty slowly.
Sheezus, Angie. Let us warm up to the thread before dropping a bomb like that.
Good thing I have a spare keyboard.
That's like acquiring Getting Things Done and not finishing it, which I may be guilty of.
Lemme put it this way; Ayn Rand, I get. But I don't think it should be schedule I, simply because I read it, realized it was dumb, and moved on. It's sorta like LSD that way -- it's really only dangerous for certain people.
As for Dale Carnegie... well, if this is the summation of what madkevin comes up with as criticism after having read the whole book, then maybe there's something to not reading the whole thing. :)
Actually, that's a good question: Have you actually read it? Like, the whole thing? Because that would really be funny if you were criticizing it and, like, hadn't read the whole thing, given...
... yeah, that.Let me know when you've graduated to reviewing movies just by looking at the poster.
Would you listen to any advice from late teens/early 20s you now?
Did you already forget how painful that book is to read, even at it's relatively low page count, with something like 16 different definitions of "Paradigm" in it? E.P. Thompson's History of the English Working Class is easier to get through, though it leaves more visible scars, so say nothing of the fucking Wraethu Chronicles, which leaves all its scars on your soul.
There's a variety of problems I have with Carnegie and Rand.
The revolutionary/revival hour/homespun wisdom way they're written is amazingly depressing, but that's aesthetics, so whatever. I also find the warmed-over Calvinism Carnegie embodies fundamentally evil, but that's not unique to them, whatever. They're explicitly written as life-changing quasi-religious books, but again nothing unique. This applies to the entire American self-help/positive thinking genre, but they're not in the same class, really.
"Turn people into douchebags" is hilarious, but simplifies an interesting point: they preach a gospel of treating other people like simplistic machines to be successful. In the hands of the demographics that love these books - confused teenagers, people who feel they aren't successful - they're radioactive.
Neither book could have possible been written before the industrial revolution; the social attitudes embodied could not have possibly been created without it.
....but I love that book. ):
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