Ask HN: Which books have you read more than once?
For those into reading books, I think it is common practice to pick a new interesting book most of the time. However I want to know if there are books you found so valuable, you went back to it multiple times. Which book(s) was it, and how many times did you read it? What compelled you to reread it?
110 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] thread"The abolition of man" by "C.S. Lewis" 3 times.
"The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times" by René Guénon. 3 times, and planning to set a weekend for another re-read soon.
The Cat In The Hat - 200 times
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - 85 times
But seriously, im on my third re-read of Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, In my opinion its the best book about leadership ever written.
For slightly older children, try "The Bravest Ever Bear".
add Gruffalo, Room on the broom and Snail and the wale for me
Maybe I missed something big, but that's just the way it felt to me.
These guys had the benefit of being leaders in an organization that is set up to rapidly show you the door if you under-perform. Furthermore, everyone that's on a SEAL team desperately wants to be there. To some extent, extreme ownership falls apart in a regular, non-combat focused military unit and also in many civilian organizations.
If you're a Soldier, the military's authority is an illusion. Don't assume that my next statement means that punishment is my first tool for attempting to remedy under-performance, but at some point with some people it becomes necessary. In those extreme cases, even that's not effective because of the way the military operates. Half of the punishments for being lazy/ineffective at your job only work if you voluntarily participate in being a part of the military. Examples: exercise as punishment only works when people choose to exercise. Putting people on punitive details like picking cigarettes up and raking lines in sand for 12 hours a day only work if the people voluntarily do the work. Some people don't show up at all and some only show up to laugh in your face and tell you to go fuck yourself in front of your superiors.
Even the punishments that don't require participation still do require voluntary participation in a way. In the military if you give someone nonjudicial punishment, typically they lose half of their pay for a month or so, and in extreme cases they'll get permanently demoted in addition to that. So you take their money away. However, for the kind of people that aren't doing their job and don't intend to, that doesn't really matter much. You are giving them 3 meals a day and a place to stay. You don't have the power to take that away from them without kicking them out of the military, which in a regular unit often takes well over a year and always requires leadership support, which may not exist given the fact that most units are operating with less people than they need.
It may be hard to see where I'm going, but my point is this. There are people in the military that don't intend to do their jobs. All of us have run into the same type of people in a civilian workplace. You can't inspire them because they don't want to be inspired. You can't lead them to do what they are supposed to do because not doing it is the only control they feel they have over their lives. The only viable option for some people is to remove them or ignore them and spend your precious time on the people that are getting the mission accomplished. In many cases, the latter is your only option.
I'm no Jocko Willink or Leif Babin in terms of being a Soldier or a leader. However, I spent almost 2 decades in the military and helped numerous Soldiers go from under-performing to be very successful. I learned that in some cases, usually when someone regrets joining the military, that you just have to move on. Sometimes, in spite of what extreme ownership claims, things really aren't your fault. As a leader, most things are your fault though, so I do agree with the overall message even if extreme ownership isn't a magic bullet.
Similar people exist in a civilian context.
Hopefully people won't read the above and assume that I avoid responsibility for my mistakes. On the contrary, I was known in the military and in my civilian job as a person that was honest and forthcoming almost to a fault.
Your points on the lessons he mention are very valid. The particular part of the book that matched your description of "this might not work for non SEALs" was when Jocko described how he took full responsibility for a near friendly fire incident. He goes on to say that he earned a lot of respect for being the type of leader that would take accountability. He points out, IIRC, that this respect was gained from both the enlisted men and the officers.
I remember reading that passage and thinking "I've been in plenty of orgs where if someone did that, sure, the 'enlisted' aka line employees might respect that but the 'officers' aka middle managers would immediately think: 'Ah ha! Here is some noble minded fool we can dump our problems on!' "
I'm exaggerating somewhat but only to reinforce the point that I think the book is excellent and agree with you that the lessons taught don't ALWAYS apply.
Do you try to find the mouse on every page in goodnight moon?
I need to go back to it. Unfortunately my much loved copy (with highlights and underlines) was given to a family member so now I am left with my Kindle version.
I've also listened to the millennium version twice.
On the business side I read Deming’s Out of the Crisis several times. The ideas are profound but the writing is mediocre so it took a few times for it to stick.
Firstly, they're good books and are enjoyable to read a second time round.
Secondly, Rothfuss has laid down plot points like a Go player places stones. The second time reading through will join together disparate pieces of information that you wouldn't have connected together before, starting from very large revelations in the second reading of the first few chapters.
I know of other books that are so rich that you can appreciate new details on multiple readings, but none that re-contextualise the whole story with revelations hidden in plain sight.
Readings: (Name of the wind - 4 times, Wise Man's Fear 5 or 6 times - I like this one more for some reason).
All of Kafka's novels, but especially "The Castle".
Several of PKD's novels: "The Man in the High Castle", "Through a Scanner Darkly", "Ubiq"
"The Silmarillion" (when I was a young adult)
Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency" (when I was a teenager)
It's like Kafka said. If you try to make a river too large, it will overflow and you'll end up with mud. There's a certain size at which a river is just right, and any more just detracts from it.
I don't want a full universe explaining every point; just a compelling story to drive the Man in the High Castle.
_timshel_
"Principles" - Ray Dalio.
"On the shortness of life" - Seneca.
Several that come to mind are
Heart of Darkness
Moby Dick
Robinson Crusoe
Pretty much any Chekhov story
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Probably the finest work of fiction ever written, and my favorite book of all time. You kind of have to read it twice, the end completely changes the interpretation of the entire rest of the book. It's great.
Avoid spoilers, and also avoid the TV versions - not even the same story, and quite disappointing. The audiobook version, read by Douglas Adams himself, is sublime.
The 2 1/2 Dirk Gently books are Adams' finest in my opinion. HHGTTG is fun, but it doesn't hold together as a cohesive narrative in the same way. It's such a shame that we'll never know how the third book would have resolved.
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
The Hobbit - Tolkien
Non-fiction: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield