Ask Lemmy

Atomic Habits.

As someone who is likely on the spectrum, it was like someone gifted me a user guide for life where other self-help books have either leaned a lot on the emotions of things or tried to cram all sorts of philosophy down my throat.

Lot's of common sense ideas around how to turn what, where, and who you want to be into actually achievable goals and genuinely helped me figure out who I want to be for myself and not for other people.

I wouldn't say it has any groundbreaking or radical ideas in it, but the structure and presentation of the simple ideas really helped me work out some life things for myself.

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm and Sam Hughes.

Played bloody knuckles with hard copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire once in grade school, and still have a lil mark from it.

"The Arsonist in the Office" by Pete Havel

Helped me recognize that the incredibly toxic job I was in was not sustainable.

"It's Your Ship" by D. Michael Abrashoff

Excellent book on leadership. Should be required reading for anyone who manages people.

"Psychopath Free" by Jackson MacKenzie

Most people probably have no idea what it's like to be in a relationship with someone who has a personality disorder. It can be absolute hell. It certainly was for me. This book provided some good insights but also helped me feel less alone.

There are other books but those are three big ones for me.

The Lord of The Rings. This book changed reading for me. I always enjoyed fantastical themes, but this one really got me. Then, I found out there was more. More background, more world building, more why.

I've never turned back. I re read it occasionally and I've read much of Tolkien's other works. Next on the list is to begin working through The History of Middle Earth. I will be starting this in the fall. It may take me quite some time to get through.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Cloud Atlas
• 1984

The End of Policing.

The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

It isn't just sci-fi, there's a lot of coming to terms with your limited amount of human influence on your environment and life, that there unknowns that will always be unknown, and that's ok, we're no different than the gains of sand by the lighthouse, as subject to nature as the grass, or birds.

There are also clones of people that have to come to terms with their identity as to what they are, even if they themselves don't fully understand it, and can't.

The universe is bigger than you, and your scope is limited, but that's ok. Find wherever you fit and try to find purpose in the chaos.

• The Gray House, Maryam Petrosyan. It's the story of a house, which is a disabled children and teenagers institution. It's weird, hard, and incredible. It's not a book for children, nor a young adult one – I mean, you can read it if you're a young adult or a late teen, but don't skip this book only because the characters are teenagers. I will reread this one.
• Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy. I read it recently because it was translated in french in 2022, but it's a book from 1976. It's a SF novel, and one of the few fictions which speaks against psychiatry. It's a feminist utopia, but the first pages are pretty hard.

His Dark Materials

Singularity Sky (and its sequel, Iron Sunrise)

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (a fanfiction novel that is far better than the original series)

What If (and What If 2, by Randall Munroe)

The Planiverse

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Society After an Apocalypse

Sophie's World

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy

Something Happened, the other, far lesser-known work by Catch-22 author Joseph Heller. It's too apples-to-oranges to throw around "better", but I already love Catch-22 and still prefer Something Happened. It's considerably longer, but in my opinion, it's criminally overlooked.

Whale Done by Ken Blanchard

Two books that made me cry at the end and helped me shape my idea of war and what really is for the common men are "Il sergente nella neve" (the sargent in the snow) by Mario Rigoni Stern, which is about the retreat of the Armir (italian army in Russia) after the second Don offensive by the Red Army from the point of view of Stern, as they started the endless march back to Italy on foot, with the Red Army biting their asses. Almost 80.000 between dead and missing. Amazing piece of literature and yet another reason to despise fascism; and All quiet on the western front, which doesnt need many explanations.

Absolute chills everytime i think about those books and the images of tragedy and hopelessness they shaped so vividly in my mind.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3173311W/Niemand_houdt_mij_tegen

John Darnielle's Devil House is a GREAT novel. All of his books are but it's particularly great

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.

Voltaire's Bastards by John Ralston Saul. It showed me how the world really works. Also The Doubter's Companion as a supplement to that.

Edit to add that after reading through all the comments, it's pleasing what a well-read community we have here.

Learning Perl, 2nd edition

The Scar, China Meiville - It's an epic journey and the clear best, in my opinion, of the Bas Lag novels. It has such weight and magic to the journey. Mystery too. It's a book that leaves you feeling like you want to feel more.

The Wild Girls, Ursula K Le Guin - a tale so emotional that I was broken for two days after reading it. Couldn't bring myself to read, or really do much except think about what I'd read.
Its about a slaving raid on a village near a city state, family, love, and gender.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Tells you everything you need to know about war. First book which made me cry. Everybody should read it.

How to solve it by Polya.

"80,000 Hours", because not only does it teach you something about wealth, humanism and fulfilling careers, it also highlights imminent dangers that receive little (scientific/regulatory) attention and points out that everyone can do something without being rich or a genius.

Although I somewhat dislike their frequent measure of 'impact' in terms of money, the book puts quite a few things into perspective, and I can accept that you need to quantify things to do so. I particularly like that they encourage you to think about problems from different angles, and them pointing out that you can have a very real impact on the overall wellbeing of any living creature, pretty no matter what you do.

"Entering Space: Creating a Spacefairing Civilization" by Robert Zubrin. My mother's work when I was growing up had a "free book shelf" that someone had put it on and she'd brought it home because I liked sciency stuff, and I've been extremely interested in space development and futurism ever since.

As a kid I read Paulo Coelho's 'Veronika decides to die' and it kinda reframed some of my thinking. From what I recall, it's a very wholesome and light read!

Shantaram. It was very much booth, a captivating pleasure to read and the utmost inspiration of willing to live life to its fullest and be a compassionate human being.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

It's more of a short story in a book filled with time traveling short stories.

I'm trying to find what it's called, but I still have the book. After reading it, I had a brief period of time where I was questioning my own freewill and choices.

Basically it starts with a time machine being in a warehouse and scientists all around. The person inside is doing everything backwards and they are attempting to communicate with paper, often getting answers before there is a question. It's a good read and I won't spoil the end.

The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog.

Anna Karenina. There's no better pshychological character study of upper class Russian culture (but at the same time, about people in general).

The technological society by Jacques Ellul. This book introduces a new way of looking at the world.

Fear of Small Numbers, by Arjun Appadurai

The ending of the last night angel books really follows you around.