Ask HN: Suggest Some Books to Read

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

If by skill you mean something you do with your hands (and this includes coding and math) reading books is not the answer. Repetition by doing, interspersed with targeted googling, is.

I'm currently finishing up the last novel in Banks' Culture series. I can recommend them.

In nonfiction land, I'm almost done with Drucker's The Effective Executive, which I think I got from an HN comment rec.

The Pragmatic Programmer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pragmatic_Programmer

Unix Power Tools

https://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/unix/upt/index.htm

If you want the doorstop:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Unix+power+tools&tag=duckduckgo-f...

What skills do you want to improve?

On writing well

Paradigms Lost by John Simon. He is often too pedantic, but I find his extreme focus on writing and speaking English properly to be refreshing in a world of laxity. Reading his book definitely improved my writing skills.

“One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.”

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Allegory of the cave by plato

Last year I read Masters of Doom by David Kushner after someone mentioned it on Hacker News. It was the best book I had read in a long time. It won't improve your skills, but I think it will motivate and inspire you to immerse yourself (if we're talking programming, doing small projects and getting feedback is a better way to improve your skills anyway).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222146.Masters_of_Doom

- 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

- Extreme ownership

- Design of everyday things

- The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time

Factfulness, this book changed how I see the world.

Code Complete

Deep Work, by Cal Newport : to focus on what matters. The talent code, by Danie Coyle : to understand the value of deliberate practice. Brain at work, astonishingly useful mixing practical neuroscience and concrete situations. Getting things Done : to adopt a good time management system (you can tweak the method). Good luck !

I really like “Smell Detectives” by Melanie Kiechle (a little review - https://ivypanda.com/essays/smell-detectives-by-melanie-kiec...). It is a book that focuses on a concerted effort by physicians and public health officials to promote hygiene in the United States’ urban centers. So, pretty informative and interesting if you are a fan of something like this ;)