Hacker News Books

I totally disagree with the premise of this article, unless I don't get the authors definition of "self help book"

> there is an entire book industry that is focused on the premise that you are merely one good idea away from the future

Many famous people started out with one good idea

> The entire business-focused self-help industry is built on the fallacy that successful people read a lot of books

Many famous successful people promote the face that they read a lot of books, such as Bill Gates and Barack Obama. It's not a fallacy.

There's a lot of junk self help books to wade through, but I have found some jewels among the trash and by jewels I mean they were just right for the situation and age I was at.

Edit: I put together a list off the top of my head of self help books I found useful (again, at the age I was at)

I'm OK – You're OK, guide to transactional analysis by Thomas Harris

Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne

Trances We Live by Stephen Wolinsky

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Zen and the Art of Leadership by Thomas Cleary

I've avoided "Think and Grow Rich" for a long time due to the title and premise of the book. I picked it up a few weeks ago and really like it.

Heck, I think if I read it 10 years ago I wouldn't even have the emotional maturity to appreciate it. There's a beauty to some of these books --- some of the ideas seem obvious and can easily be written off until you have the emotional wherewithal and maturity to appreciate the difficulty of what they are suggesting.

"Think and Grow Rich" is a good example. What do you mean... I just have to write a vision for myself that I believe I can achieve, and read it twice a day? Sounds stupid.

... and then you realize how difficult it is for people to truly come up with a vision statement for their success that they legitimately believe they can achieve within a specific time frame... And that doing this correctly is the hard part.

Brilliant.