Books that changed your life/perspective?

[katherine]

Hey FPGeeks --

There's a thread on the last book you read that's going... But I was wondering if anyone could point me toward books that really made an impact on you, even if it wasn't the last book you read.

I read (on average) about a book a week and am looking for a little more "substantive" reading and less fiction/fantasy -- but am also open to life changing fiction! Also I've got 15 hours of layovers in the next couple weeks... so a lot of reading time coming up.


To kick things off, the first book that comes to mind for me is Lean In. (I'm a woman in tech who had/sometimes still has a really bad case of imposter syndrome )

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion - by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra - by Thich Nhat Hanh


Bit of a pattern there, I know, but these books began my journey toward insight and sustain it along the way.

[bluesea]

The Odyssey
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

[jar]

Kim.
Just so Stories.
Jungle Book.
A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Mysterious Stranger.

[ambimom]

As a woman of a certain age who was deeply immersed in the woman's movement of the 1970s, Sheryl Sandberg strikes me as a plutocrat elitist who happens to be a woman rather than a true feminist. Feminism in my day had more meaning than leaning in: we had "sisterhood is powerful" and "uppity women unite." It was not the cream rising to the top but everyone rising to the top together.

So if you're looking for reading that illustrates opportunity and choice, I suggest the following.

Middlemarch (George Eliot), unbelievably prescient with lessons for today.

The four Neopolitan novels by Elena Ferrante: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...96085,d.d2s://

[katherine]

Ambimom - Yeah, for sure. Lean In definitely has its issues, but it was very helpful for me realizing that other women in tech had similar experiences.

Thank you for the recs!

[bluesea]

I would also add Gore Vidal's Burr and Creation, the latter especially if one was less into the American Historical context.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series showed me that fantasy didn't have to be as saccharine or as one-dimensional as Lord of the Rings. There, I said it.

[gbryal]

BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl.

[penwash]

- The Holy Bible
- The GOAL (Eliyahu Goldratt)
- Inspector Yashim Mysteries (Jason Goodwin)
- Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy city (Guy Delisle) <-- a graphic novel, *not* a religious book
- The Cuckoo's Egg (Clifford Stoll) <-- if you are a computer geek, read this book, it's a classic
- Musashi (Eiji Yoshikawa)
- The Adventures of Tintin (Herge)
- Curtain (Agatha Christie)

More recently:
- A few of the ~200 business books that I read since I kick myself out of corporate America and start a company. I can name the titles, but I don't want to bore you all.

[katherine]

- A few of the ~200 business books that I read since I kick myself out of corporate America and start a company. I can name the titles, but I don't want to bore you all.

If you had to pick just a couple "business" books, what should I read? I'm particularly interested in time management, people management and sales.

[jar]

- A few of the ~200 business books that I read since I kick myself out of corporate America and start a company. I can name the titles, but I don't want to bore you all.

If you had to pick just a couple "business" books, what should I read? I'm particularly interested in time management, people management and sales.

Start with "Language in thought and action" and then "The Authoritarians".

[penwash]

- A few of the ~200 business books that I read since I kick myself out of corporate America and start a company. I can name the titles, but I don't want to bore you all.

If you had to pick just a couple "business" books, what should I read? I'm particularly interested in time management, people management and sales.

For time management + sales, I recommend: The 24-Hour Customer (Adrian Ott), Speed of Trust (Stephen Covey Jr.)

For people: Loyalty 3.0 (Rajat Paharia), Scale (Jeff Hoffman), The ONE (Gary Keller of "Keller-Williams"), The Starfish and the Spider (Ori Brafman)

For sales -- my reading is more geared towards B2B, because my company make online tools for businesses: Bag The Elephant (Steve Kaplan), B2B Executive Playbook (Sean Geehan), Pull (David Siegel), The Ultimate Question (Fred Reichheld)

I can prattle on... but this should get you started.

[migo984]

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nye - The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan.

[Paddler]

"Roughing It" and "Life on the Mississippi" by Twain
"The Noble Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel" by Francois Rabelais

[RuiFromUK]

"Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences / Clinical Psychiatry" by Kaplan & Sadocks
"Management and Cost Accounting" by Charles Horngren
"Economics" by Paul A Samuelson
"Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic (Culture, Place, and Nature: Studies in Anthropology and Environment)" by Jinghong Zhang

in that order of reading not preference

[katherine]

Woo! So many interesting sounding books to read -- thank you everyone!

penwash - I'm also in b2b, so this works out great.

[penwash]

penwash - I'm also in b2b, so this works out great.

If you have to state in one sentence, what do you (your company) do in B2B industry?

I left out an excellent business book: Predictable Success (Les McKeown)

[katherine]

penwash - I'm also in b2b, so this works out great.

If you have to state in one sentence, what do you (your company) do in B2B industry?

I left out an excellent business book: Predictable Success (Les McKeown)

We're a startup that uses large scale machine learning to prevent online fraud. I run the sales engineering and support functions.

Thank you for the recs! I read Predictable Revenue about a year ago -- and that was immensely helpful, but there are so many books out there, it's hard to filter and figure out what's worth reading.

[SeminarianMike]

To Save a thousand Souls Fr Brett Brennan, the bible of course, and Musings of Grumpy Cat