While reading the post, "The Domain-Driven Design Paradox" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13520209), I was reminded of a book that I enjoyed as a kid, called <i>The Paradoxicon</i> [1] by Nicholas Falletta. This was where I learned about the works of M.C. Escher and Moebius strips. I didn't originally own this book; instead, I had checked it out from the library. I eventually bought the book in college out of nostalgia and was hoping to thumb through it again after reading the article above, only to realize it was not on my bookshelf. I was considering buying it again and was reminded of all the other technical books that were influential to me as I was growing. What technical books did you love as you grew up? Bonus points if you have the title as an adult. Even more points if it is the same book that you grew up with.<p>[1] - www.goodreads.com/book/show/2521223.The_Paradoxicon
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Things_Work" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Things_Work</a><p>Probably the single most influential on my technical education. Each page made me feel like I was inside the machines.
I had a few books growing up that I came across that I really enjoyed.<p>Getting Started with Electronics was a Radio Shack book I owned that I used to learn the basics of circuits.<p>Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman was a book I came across back in high school that opened my eyes more to self teaching / learning and curiosity.<p>Later on in college I came across How to Solve it by Polya that opened my eyes up to ways to approach problem solving.<p>I also stumbled on Thinking as a Science by Henry Hazlitt which had a great approach to learning something new.
Design for the real world by Victor Papanek.
It was recommend reading for my design & technology GCSE course and it had a profound affect on the way I thought about design, form, function and just the holistic way in which we should try to live.
Godel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach</a><p>A friend of mine introduced it to me at school and we were both hooked. I recently bought it again as I wanted a copy for my kids!
Don't remember what books I read as a kid really but some book on political philosophy really messed with my mind that and some Swedish books on computer design and similar stuff. Not the same after that. Used to spend a lot of time at the library. But I have fond memories from the disc world series.
<i>The Computational Beauty of Nature</i> (1997) by William Flake is the book that cemented my fascination with computation, computability, and computer science as having something fundamental to say about the physical universe in which we live.It probably sounds banal to all of you in this age but for a 16 year old steeped in high school physics and this mysterious ’calculus’ problems with their elegant closed form solutions the idea of the amount of actual calculating required to figure something out being relevant was... amazing.
Not nearly as deep as everyone else, but I read all the Tom Swift books. And the Robotech books. These opened my imagination and made me think of the possibilities.
I'll start by posting my own list of influential technical books:<p><i>The Paradoxicon</i> [1] by Nicholas Falletta. As described in question above.<p><i>Computers and the Imagination</i> by Clifford A. Pickover [2] - This book is filled with mathematical and computer related curiousities! I learned about fractals, and chaos, computer generated art and poetry and a whole bunch of, at time, interesting mathematical trivia. This is probably the first book that got me seriously interested in computer programming. This was basically an activity book for mathematics and computers.<p><i>Methods of Logic</i> by W.V. Quine[3] - This stimulated my interest in symbolic logic and symbolic computation. I didn't read the whole book but I read enough to write a program on my HP-48 GX graphicing calculator to simplify symbolic propositional logic statements.<p><i>Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology</i> by Steven Levy [4] - This was my first exposure to celluar automata in the form of John Conway's Game of Life. This books also inspired me to write a Game of Life program on my HP-48 GX.<p><i>God and the New Physics</i> by Paul Davies [5] - I learned about the big bang theory and singularities and how the universe could exist without being created from this book. This may be the single most influential book I've ever read. It spurted my interest in physics and cosmology and was probably single-handedly responsible for my loss of religion.<p><i>Flim-Flam!</i> by James Randi [6] - This is the book that made me a skeptic. Before reading this book around 6th grade, I was a hardcore believer in the occult. In fact, I had already read the Uri Geller book by Puharich [7] and happened to find this book in the same occult section of the library.<p><i>The Mind</i> by John Rowan Wilson [8] - My 5th grade teacher happened to have this book in her classroom and let me borrow it. I had a hard time giving it back and decades (well, maybe one decade) later I somehow managed to track it down and buy it again. The book is from the 1960s, but there are some really good illustrations in it and I learned about Grey Walter and his robot tortoises from this book.<p><i>Creative Sciencing: Ideas and Activities for Teachers and Children</i> by Alfred Devito [9] - This book is just awesome! My mom was a teacher when I was growing up and I remember finding this on the bookshelf that we had at home. There are lots of very fun science projects in this book. I won't claim to have done very many of them, but my favorite was the "rubber-band mobile" [10]. Although I love technology and gadgets and computers, it still saddens me that the desire for physical experimentation has waned in kids these days.<p>There were definitely other technical books that I loved but these are the ones that I think were the most influential as far as my career choices and outlook on life. They are not necessarily the best in their class and most are outdated now.<p>[1] - www.goodreads.com/book/show/2521223.The_Paradoxicon<p>[2] - <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Computers-imagination-Visual-adventures-beyond/dp/0312061315/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485795792&sr=1-1&keywords=computers+and+the+imagination" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Computers-imagination-Visual-adventur...</a><p>[3] - <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Methods-Logic-Willard-Orman-Quine/dp/0674571762/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485795820&sr=1-1&keywords=methods+of+logic" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Methods-Logic-Willard-Orman-Quine/dp/...</a><p>[4] - <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/737831.Artificial_Life" rel="nofollow">http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/737831.Artificial_Life</a><p>[5] - <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/263006.God_and_the_New_Physics" rel="nofollow">http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/263006.God_and_the_New_Ph...</a><p>[6] - <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/662277.Flim_Flam_" rel="nofollow">http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/662277.Flim_Flam_</a><p>[7] - find it yourself, I'm not providing links to this trash!<p>[8] - <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1135687.The_Mind" rel="nofollow">http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1135687.The_Mind</a><p>[9] - <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sciencing-Activities-Teachers-Children/dp/B002FCNJC2/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485793711&sr=1-7&keywords=creative+sciencing" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sciencing-Activities-Teacher...</a><p>[10] - take a spool of thread and push a rubber band through the hole in its center, allowing the ends of the rubber band to protrude from both ends of the spool. On one end, slide a short matchstick through the rubber band loop, thus preventing the rubber from being pulled all the way through the spool. Create a washer out of hard bar soap or candle wax and carve a grove along its flat disk side. On the other end of the spool, thread the remainig rubber band loop through the soap washer and hold it in place with another match stick, allowing the match stick to settle into the grove that was cut in the soap washer. You now have a spool of thread with a rubber band threaded through the middle and held in place by a matchstick on one end and a soap washer and another match stick on the other. The matchstick on the soap washer acts as a key for winding up the rubber band, which itself acts like a spring. After winding the key up for 10 or 20 turns, place it on a table or any other flat surface. As the tension unwinds the rubber band, it also rotates the spool, causing the entire contraption to move.
How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie<p>I've always thought the title is a bit off putting, and to some the points are common sense.<p>But I find myself referring back to it for advice on how to handle a particular situation with a friend, colleague or client.<p>That's why I nicknamed it 'The Good Book'. :)