TL;DR: Currently, there are three books I would unconditionally recommend everyone to read, in the following order:
- Antifragile
- Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Why We Sleep
Since establishing my reading habit a few years ago, I have read many books, and resisted to classify or rank them. I did record some rough ratings, but never found a satisfactory point. In the end, I only read what I enjoy, so they are naturally and personally filtered - what would the ratings help?
However, while reading "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an author I became very fond of within the last few months, I realized there was a distinct class of books dealing with universal concepts that should be part of every curriculum. So far, I classify only three books I know of and have read into that category, and all three are from tenured people who spent their whole lifetime delving into and researching the concepts captured in these books. They capture the very essence of their life's work.
The first of these, a well-known classic and the book that kicked off My Reading Habit, is "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahnemann, a nobel laureate. In ~25 chapters the professor of psychology explains fundamental tendencies and biases of our mind which are often exploited in modernity. Merely being aware of them will allow you to recognize and reconsider crucial daily decisions.
Later on I discovered "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. Initially I was hesitant, since I was already aware that our society undervalues sleep and very careful to not disturb it without important reasons. However, this book exposed the ignorance at a whole new level: Sleep strengthens your immune system, makes you more beautiful (really, this has been studied!) and productive, lifts your mood, forms memories and improves skills. The only side-effect is a leap in time with some more or less interesting hallucinations in between (which can also be beneficial ;) ). If it were a drug, people would pay millions. Yet they prefer a small raise over getting sufficient sleep. Mathematical nonsense - but we do not intrinsically think mathematically, as Kahnemann already taught us. Be careful, though: Sleep induced through alcohol or sleeping pills is more like anesthesia, which does not carry any of these benefit.
The last one so far is "Antifragile", the finale of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Concerto". It scientifically and rigorously debunks most of what we call "science" and refined my view of the world in several areas, while staying down to earth, grounded in reality. The important point here is the universality of the concept of Antifragility: This is not some theory based on experiments, it is an omnipresent phenomenon - like the observation that, on the surface of planet earth, an apple naturally falls from a tree, everything fragile (such as washing machines and computers) breaks down from use and time. But there is the Antifragile, such as our body, which benefits from stressors (up to a point) and decays if it is /not/ used. The only critique of this book seems to come from people who do not understand the concept fully - maybe because it threatens what they base their existence on (such as economists who make fragile predictions).
If you are looking for a single recommendation, take Antifragile and then proceed according to your interests. If you already read a lot, start with Kahnemann and read Antifragile second, as the former equips you with some tools to put concepts explained in the latter into context.