Of Human Bondage

I'm not even sure if I would like it if I were to reread it today, but reading Of Human Bondage when I was 21 led me to rethink a lot of my life and make some pretty impactful changes (e.g., got out of an unhealthy relationship, decided to pick up a practical skill (programming) on the side while in a PhD program in comparative literature). I guess you never really know what's going to speak to you at a given point in your life, so read widely!

Although I am an avid reader and have been reading on average 1 or 2 books each week for the past 15 years, I don't think I've ever read a book than "changed my life". Looking back, I think the most impactfull book for me was The Art of Loving (1956) by Erich Fromm because it opened up a world of psychology and psychoanalysis and significantly altered my view on how humans think. Among the classic fiction the best so far were: T. Dreiser - The Bulwark, S. Maugham - Of Human Bondage, L. Tolstoy - The Kreutzer Sonata and E. Zola - l'Oeuvre & Germinal.

Demon Haunted World (Sagan). The art of baloney detection and scientific thinking. Letters from a Stoic (Seneca). The pursuit of happiness is meaningless, focus on the pursuit of wisdom. Poor Charlie's Almanac (Charles T. Munger). A library of mental/thinking models can take you a long way. Of Human Bondage (Maugham). What is the meaning of life?

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham Gold by Isaac Asimov

Fiction: tie between Of Human Bondage by W.Somerset Maugham or The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky Non-Fiction: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond Business: Rework by Jason Fried - one of the best in a long time