RE: Your Three Most Influential Books
June 13, 2015 at 7:18 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2015 at 7:19 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
As a reader:
Dune, by Frank Herbert. Between that book and high-school geometry, I got a good start to the art of analysis -- albeit a late one.
Cosmos, from Carl Sagan (though I could easily have inserted Dragons of Eden, or Randi's Flim-flam! in this spot as well) -- all these books furthered the beginnings of analytics, for me, by demonstrating book-length examples.
Catcher in the Rye really resonated with me -- I was an outcast in high-school, and the alienation in the book spoke to me almost directly.
As a writer:
On the Road, because the style was so left-field that it taught me about writing as painting pictures, rather than writing as exposition or writing as art.
On Writing, from Stephen King, has much great advice for writers of all levels in it.
A Farewell to Arms taught me to write sparely, but be florid when the moment demands it.
But if you asked me tomorrow, you'd probably get six different titles.
Dune, by Frank Herbert. Between that book and high-school geometry, I got a good start to the art of analysis -- albeit a late one.
Cosmos, from Carl Sagan (though I could easily have inserted Dragons of Eden, or Randi's Flim-flam! in this spot as well) -- all these books furthered the beginnings of analytics, for me, by demonstrating book-length examples.
Catcher in the Rye really resonated with me -- I was an outcast in high-school, and the alienation in the book spoke to me almost directly.
As a writer:
On the Road, because the style was so left-field that it taught me about writing as painting pictures, rather than writing as exposition or writing as art.
On Writing, from Stephen King, has much great advice for writers of all levels in it.
A Farewell to Arms taught me to write sparely, but be florid when the moment demands it.
But if you asked me tomorrow, you'd probably get six different titles.
