I see loads of great suggestions in this thread, let me just add three of my LEAST favourite nonfiction books:
Thinking, Fast and Slow: Really should have been subtitled The Ludic Fallacy Run Amok. Filled with grand generalisations based on dubious conclusions from small under-powered behavioural experiments. Read if you want further evidence that Behavioural Economics, that bastard child of psychology is an edifice built on bullshit.
Masters of DOOM: A homage from a fanboy meant for other fanboys. It definitely has its bits of brilliance but it is still a chore to finish.
The Inner Game of Tennis: At 161 pages it might seem short but is in fact 160 pages too long. I bought it after someone on HN said its advice wasn't really about tennis but about life. I wonder what that person was smoking at the time.
> Thinking, Fast and Slow: Really should have been subtitled The Ludic Fallacy Run Amok.
Recently I read Blink by Malcom Gladwell (somewhat recommend) and I finally understood why I hated Thinking, Fast and Slow so much.
Gladwell mentions a concept called thin-sliccing [1]. I finally had a term to describe my feelings towards that book. If you pay attention to the beginning you get a pretty accurate idea of just how bad the book really is overall.
Given the book's subject I find the whole thing deliciously ironic.
I just finished reading the Undoing Project which is a biography of Kahneman and Tversky. I realized that Kahneman and Tversky's conclusions seem the opposite of Gladwell's Blink which I read many years ago. I need to go back and read Blink again to see what I really think.
Regarding the Inner Game, I haven't read that, but felt the same about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Apparently the inspiration of both might have been Zen in the Art of Archery, which some say is better than either of the previous two, but I've never read it.
I do recall thinking that Kahneman moved too quickly over his own comment in that book that over 50 percent of studies in psychology had been found to be under powered from a statistical standpoint. He didn't then follow with 'so I made sure that every study mentioned in this book had sufficient power'... Which made me worried about his conclusions. Given your opinion was voiced so strongly, I assume you've looked at this in detail? If so could you please expand on what evidence or research supports your statement?
> Masters of DOOM: A homage from a fanboy meant for other fanboys. It definitely has its bits of brilliance but it is still a chore to finish.
Can I recommend the audiobook? For what it's worth I found Masters of DOOM to be great. Mostly because the writing style _really_ does a good job of communicating the personalities of the people involved. I'm not a video game guy, in fact I've never played DOOM, but I still enjoyed it start to finish.
I haven't read Masters of DOOM but I did enjoy the other two books. And yes, the Inner Game of Tennis is more about the "inner game" than the tennis. And the inner game applies to everything in life. Too bad you didn't appreciate the book but I guess to each his own.
Thinking, Fast and Slow: Really should have been subtitled The Ludic Fallacy Run Amok. Filled with grand generalisations based on dubious conclusions from small under-powered behavioural experiments. Read if you want further evidence that Behavioural Economics, that bastard child of psychology is an edifice built on bullshit.
Masters of DOOM: A homage from a fanboy meant for other fanboys. It definitely has its bits of brilliance but it is still a chore to finish.
The Inner Game of Tennis: At 161 pages it might seem short but is in fact 160 pages too long. I bought it after someone on HN said its advice wasn't really about tennis but about life. I wonder what that person was smoking at the time.