LifeHacker has an interesting post full of books that have changed peoples lives. Readers of the blog nominated books and LifeHacker tallied the votes. No surprise that The Bible is number one, of coarse more praise then it should receive. Interestingly, at a very close second was the works of Ayn Rand's. As an Ayn Rand follower, its good to see others are reading her but I always find it interesting that everyone has read her books though rarely anyone practices her philosophy. Other books include The Stranger by Camus, works by George Orwell, and two books by the biologist and quite possibly the smartest scientist since Darwin, Richard Dawkins. His books The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion both made the list and I would agree that they are excellent reads.

I say if you are going to use what little time you have to read a book, you might as well read something that will make you think. This list has a good amount that will stimulate your mind intellectually and do as the title of the post states. Unfortunately books like the Hobbit and Dune made the top list with Harry Potter not far behind. I do not see how these books can really influence you to change your life. They are great books but only for entertainment sake; none are on par with The Stranger when it comes to life changing reads. I can not see how a bunch of wizards pretending to do magic can change the world.

When the last Harry Potter book came out last year everyone on the street was reading it. Every time I was on the subway I could count 4-6 people with their noses in the book. I thought to myself, "at least they are reading," but then I realized that just reading alone is not what makes a person better. Its like the term we use in design, "garbage in, garbage out." If a client gives me low quality assets, he is going to get low quality creatives. I cant make gold out of garbage. If people are not reading gold how are they going to better themselves. Its one thing to read The Hobbit or Harry Potter to entertain yourself but to consider them works that changed your life is something others should be concerned about. One should pay attention to what we read and why we are reading it.