# What book would you send back in time to your 21 year old self to read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 28, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437 "2018-08-28T21:50:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/1 "2018-08-28T21:50:39Z")
It must not have been published when you were 21. But, if you choose the first book in a series, your 21 year old self won’t be able to read the rest of the series until it’s really published. And your past self won’t be able to tell anyone else about the book. I would choose The Warrior’s Apprentice, by Lois McMaster Bujold. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/2 "2018-08-28T22:12:53Z")
Anything that I could profit from. Like sportsball stats. A la Back to the Future 2. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/3 "2018-08-28T22:21:37Z")
I’m a big fan of the 2007 book _Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)_ by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, and would guess that I could have profited from knowing its contents when I was 21. So, that one. > **[Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistakes_Were_Made_(But_Not_by_Me))** > > Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me) is a non-fiction book by social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, first published in 2007. It deals with cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias and other cognitive biases, using these psychological theories to illustrate how the perpetrators (and victims) of hurtful acts justify and rationalize their behavior. It describes a positive feedback loop of action and self-deception by which slight differences between people's attitudes become polarized.... ---
**Author:** ![Trafalgar\_Laura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trafalgar_laura/32/2907_2.png) [@Trafalgar\_Laura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trafalgar_Laura)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/4 "2018-08-28T22:22:34Z")
_The Conquest of Happiness_ by Bertrand Russell. I just think that, and branching out from that to some of Russell’s other writings, might have made my early 20s easier. ---
**Author:** ![Asylum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Asylum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asylum)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/5 "2018-08-28T22:30:43Z")
My diary, with a Post-It note on the front that says “don’t make the same mistakes again, asshole.” ---
**Author:** ![Allecher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a6a055/32.png) [@Allecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Allecher)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/6 "2018-08-28T22:35:58Z")
The first thing that comes to mind is The Demon Haunted World. ---
**Author:** ![Trafalgar\_Laura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trafalgar_laura/32/2907_2.png) [@Trafalgar\_Laura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trafalgar_Laura)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/7 "2018-08-28T22:42:05Z")
Pretty sure I misread OP and misresponded. My apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/8 "2018-08-28T23:16:32Z")
> [@Allecher](#): > > The first thing that comes to mind is The Demon Haunted World. Yeah, that’s a great one too. ‘Explaining how people can believe/do the things they do’ is a feature of both that one and _Mistakes Were Made_. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/9 "2018-08-28T23:25:39Z")
Definitely the sports almanac. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/10 "2018-08-28T23:27:24Z")
A corporate history of Microsoft. I was 21 before it was founded, so that would let me get in early. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/11 "2018-08-29T00:50:05Z")
_Lord Foul’s Bane_ by Stephen R. Donaldson. Since I turned 21 in 1975, and the original Covenant trilogy was published in 1977, I’d have only needed to wait 2 years for the rest of the trilogy. Regardless of what one thinks of the Covenant books and Stephen R. Donaldson generally, the Covenant trilogy was the story I really needed to help find my way out of the peculiar lostness I was in during the mid to late 1970s. I didn’t actually come across it until 1981, and it was still the story I needed then. Wouldn’t have minded some help in getting my head straightened out a few years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/12 "2018-08-29T02:34:01Z")
Definitely would have chosen _Techniques of the Selling Writer_ by Dwight V. Swain, but that did exist at that point. For something published later, it would probably be _Titan_ by John Varley. It inspired me to be a writer. ---
**Author:** ![Panther\_Modern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@Panther\_Modern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panther_Modern)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/13 "2018-08-29T03:16:15Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > Anything that I could profit from. Like sportsball stats. A la Back to the Future 2. Yep. This is the correct answer. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-would-you-send-back-in-time-to-your-21-year-old-self-to-read/820437/14 "2018-08-29T05:52:38Z")
Can we make it my 10th year old self? I think she would have benefitted from Cordelia’s Honor a lot more than the 21yo version. I spent so much of 5th grade hearing what an enormous problem with authority I had… I don’t have a problem with authority, but with lack thereof, once you take into account that one of that word’s meanings is “knowledge, expertise”. So, yeah, I don’t want power. I just object to idiots having power over me.