“In my own life I can say I had similar books. The magnitude was not the same, but in relative terms the impact was still there. Each one of these was for me, what the economist Tyler Cowen calls a ‘quake book.’ They shook my entire world and then, as it happened, were responsible for a great deal of success in my career, relationships, and my happiness.”

Marginalia, the Anti-Library, and Other Ways to Master the Lost Art of Reading – 99U.