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Ask Slashdot: What Are Some Books You Wish You Had Read Earlier?

Posted by msmash on from the let's-get-this-rolling dept.

Reader joshtops writes: Hey, community. Could you folks please name some books that you wish you had read earlier -- especially because these books presumbably had an impact on your life. The books could be from any genre or year.

7 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. Back to the Future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Grays Sports Almanac 1950-2000... back in 1990

  2. Dune by berchca · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Shocking how much more to it than the movie/tv versions. In fact, they only serve as spoilers.

  3. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I first encountered Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy in adulthood and I immediately wished someone had introduced it to me in middle school. For the purposes of this discussion, it's about a kid who keeps getting moved from one society into another. Each time he assimilates into a new group he notices the strengths and weaknesses of the new culture. Most of the coming-of-age books I was exposed to glorified the misfit and tried to reassure the reader that it's OK to be different. Citizen of the Galaxy doesn't bother with that at all---the protagonist integrates more-or-less successfully into every society he joins and he never gets angsty about not fitting in. This would have been a good thing to read when I was younger.

  4. How to Win Friends and Influence People by lq_x_pl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    by Dale Carnegie.
    Seriously.
    There's a thousand fantastic resources available on how to be a better programmer. Accruing technical acumen has always been the easiest part of navigating my career. Knowing how to work with humans has always been tricky. I wish I would have read this book back in high school.

    --
    An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
  5. Contact and GEB by Volfied · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Contact by Carl Sagan
    and
    Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

  6. The Mythical Man Month by bobbied · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are an engineer, manager or other technical career.... OR a MANAGER of anybody who falls into those categories, this should be *required* reading every few years.

    Truths I've learned from this book include...

    "If one woman can make a baby in 9 months... Then let's get 9 to make one it 1 month..." is a logical fallacy often used by management.

    "Technical teams should be clearly scoped and fairly small or the amount of effort required for communications and coordination will consume more resources than the actual work. "

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  7. Re:Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Executive summary:
    0. The usual stuff about why all other self-help books are crap but this one isn't.
    1. Be proactive
    blablabla
    2. Begin with the end in mind
    goal-oriented blablabla
    3. Put things first
    prioritize blabla
    4. Think win-win
    the others are your partners pretty easy, eh?
    skip two virtues, something about communicating in emphatic ways, etc. not really important, fuck it
    7. Sharpen the saw
    take a break and never stop learning, etc. blabla

    $$$ SUCCESS
      easy-peasy