The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

In no particular order and off the top of my head; The Sherlock Holmes canonical stories - The importance of logical reasoning and brain over brawn. Instrumental in teaching me to think. Physics for Entertainment (and other books) by Ya. Perelman - Beauty and understanding of Science. Instrumental in giving me a lifelong interest in Science/Technology. Structured Computer Organization by Andrew Tanenbaum - Instrumental in teaching me the layering of abstractions by which something complex can arise from more simpler and detailed components. Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda and The Science of Yoga by Swami Sivananda - Instrumental in introducing me to Hindu philosophy. Bruce lee's fighting method (3 vols) - Instrumental in introducing me to Martial Arts and physical culture. The above books were the ones which sparked my interest in their respective domains decades ago (late 1980s/early 1990s in India) when books were hard to come by and money wasn't available either. When i look around today, books are so easily available and yet people have stopped reading and even seem to lack curiosity.

I don't really read books, but I've really enjoyed reading a lot of Sherlock Holmes lately. The stories themselves aren't that interesting but the way Holmes collects, processes and works with data assisted by his methodical and almost pedantic approach to draw relevant conclusions from said data using his extensive knowledge of previous cases is extremely engaging. Now that the 21st century is entirely data driven, I feel these books give a very amateurish but still relevant perspective as to all the things we could do with the knowledge available to us.

I would recommend taking a look through all of the free classics available on the Kindle store. There are thousands of old books that are out of copyright and are completely free to download. You can find stuff like the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, papers by einstein, Gulliver's Travels, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, and lots of other really great reads.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Just to name two out of the many i love: Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy and The adventures of Sherlock Holmes.