Poorani Ramu did a thing where you write about 10 books that come to your mind that made a difference to you, off the top of your head heres mine: 1- lost illusions by balzac, story of a poet from a small town who goes to paris and gets into all sorts of shit and realizes he was wrong about all sorts of things, from inside his head to the world at large, everybody is simultaneously good and bad, just awesome 2- user illusion by tor norretranders- helped me think better about consciousness, about free will, about physics, about communication- why we all feel inescapably alone, from a communications POV. and many, many other things 3- lives of a cell, by lewis thomas- very continental philosophy thoughts from a biologist watcher. made me appreciate and love the interdependency of all things more 4- black swan by nassim taleb- I kept thinking holy shit, Im a dumbass while I was reading it. dont be a sucker. dont pick pennies before a steamroller. 5- antifragile by nassim taleb- continues from those thoughts. complex systems cant be governed like simple ones. you need some noise, some shock, some long random walks, some craziness. 6- the chocolate war, robert cormier. a reminder that kids can be assholes and life is cruel and harsh almost for no reason. think mean girls but darker, uglier, crueller, no happiness. 7- confessions of an advertising man, david ogilvy. the fella just sparkles with intelligence. observant, irreverent, opinionated, intense yet calm in a way that very few people manage to pull off. wouldve loved to have known him. 8- enders game, orson scott card. incredibly smooth, easy read yet so powerful. intense realization that all moral frameworks are closed systems, and that decisions, leadership, etc are hard 9- glass castle, jeannette walls. a reminder that parents can simultaneously be amazing and terrible at the same time, and that people can be larger than life... just such an amazing life story, such interesting parents youll love and hate together 10- made to stick, dan and chip heath. a simple thought- we talk about things we care about because theyre important to us, shouldnt we do everything we can to make sure that those important things get preserved as thoroughly as possible? that they stick, and get shared with others, and make people want to share them too? once you think about it you cant make it go away
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:53:01 +0000
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