The Bible

Honestly, reading the Bible helped me in ways I never anticipated. Books like Esther are master classes in how to interact with people.

Upvoted, and I would also say the Book of Mormon, with the Bible. The BoM reinforces the Bible's teachings powerfully, and as I age and read again, sometimes in other languages, and some scholarly things about it, they both just keep getting better and better. Including in their effect on me. You can get a copy of either one for free. Edit: Additionally, some which have been mentioned or not: - a couple of biographies of Lincoln (one is free on gutenberg.org, the other more recent by Doris Kearns Goodwin), and one of Washington whose name I forget now, but there are good ones out there. - the 7 Habits book (Covey), and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Carnegie. - Refactoring ..., by Martin Fowler. - some thick Scheme programming book from college (sorry, it's downstairs). And "The Little Schemer", also about Scheme (one of the authors, Friedman, was also our instructor). - Since Cumorah, by Hugh Nibley (maybe dated now, but there is a lot of related work). Really got me interested in related topics.

Personally, because a thorough understanding of the Bible shows that its teaching is quite different to what is often portrayed in media and in the assumptions of people like myself who had not previously read it. You can take many individual parts of the Bible out of context and make it sound like madness but reading the whole in its entirety has a narrative that many miss. For those raised on the internet and faster gratification (like me), try The Jesus Storybook Bible which I personally think is a great effort at paraphrasing the original. EDIT: clarity

The only reason anyone needs to never read anything by Dan Brown is Dan Brown's writing. I'm terrible at random-access, on-demand list building like this, but I strongly agree about a few of the other things mentioned here: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Godel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis Walden by Thoreau A few of the better and more philosophical bits out of the bible (especially in a good modern translation), including Ecclesiastes and 1 Corinthians 13 To this list, I would also add Ralph Waldo Emerson's classic essays, including Self-Reliance and Experience

My favorite book was probably "Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman." I liked it, because it was fun to read, especially when he played a practical joke. A bit farther down the list would be the newest Wheel of Time books. Brandon Sanderson annoyed me at first, but once I got over that I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it had a very similar style to the original. I enjoyed it immensely. Somewhere after that are a few of the slightly more technical books I read. Maybe Coders At Work? It gave me a better sense of the history of the industry, but I don't think you should read it if your goal is to learn how to be a better hacker. Finally there is The Bible, which I would recommend to anyone.