9 Books to Change The Way You See The World
I occasionally come across a thread on Twitter which containts such wealth of information that I feel inspired to dig in deeper and make sense of the data. I recently came across a thread like this which started off with a simple yet brilliant question by Shaan Puri ( kudos to him):
“What book changed the way you saw the world?”
Needless to say it received a ton of answers. From people such as a famous Silicon Valley investor and startup esseyist Paul Graham to hundreds of ‘layman’ twitter users. I noticed a lot of overlapping answers and was curious as to which books gathered the most mentions. Unfortunately, these Twitter threats are highly unstructed from data perspective.
As any decent bookworm would, I did my best to sift through the more than 450 responses and as a result collected more than 181 individual books and recorded them in an Airtable spreadsheet. Obviously this is a small sample which is hardly representative and highly biased but nevertheless, I thought the results were pretty interesting.
Without further ado, here are the 9 books that came out on top with most mentions from the Twittersphere.
9. The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness
Based on theories of Alfred Adler, the book is written in a form of a conversation between a philosopher and a young man. The philosopher explains to his pupil how each of us is able to determine our own lives, free of the shackles of past experiences, doubts and the expectations of others. Sounds like a life-changing book already, doesn’t it?
8. Siddharta by Herman Hesse
Siddharta by Herman Hesse charmingly describces the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha. Short, lyrical book exploding with wisdom.
7. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kaheman
Daniel Kahneman is the Nobel laurate and a legend in the field of behavioral psychology. Thinking, Fast and Slow is a seminal piece covering lifetime of research into cognitive psychology, behavioral economics and human psyche as such.
6. The 4-hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
This book from the self-improvement guru, serial entrepreneur and angel investor Tim Ferris is one of the seminal works in the ‘change the way you work and escape the rat race’ genre.
5. Never Split The Difference by Chriss Voss
Chriss Voss is a former international hostage negotiator for the FBI. In this book, he offers a new, field-tested toolkit to high-stakes negotiations―whether in the boardroom or at home.
4. Men's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Based on his experiences in Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz, from 1942 to 1945, Frankl's timeless memoir and meditation on finding meaning in the midst of suffering argues that man cannot avoid suffering but can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.
3. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins' take on the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.
2. Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
With a subtitle of ‘Things that Gain from Disorder’, this is an cxtremely ambitious and multidisciplinary book. Antifragile provides a blueprint for how to behave - and thrive - in a world we don't understand, and which is too uncertain for us to even try to understand and predict.
1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harrari
Sapiens probably needs very little introduction as it has been one of the best selling non-fiction, meta-narrative books of the past several years. Easy to read and full of fascinating details and reframes of the history of humankind, this is a must-read for any curious mind.
What’s Yours?
Do you have a book which changed your life or the way you look at the world? If so, please share it in the comments or get in touch - I would love to keep the Airtable going. If you would like access to the full list, drop me a line.