Greg Egan's Permutation City had a major influence on my own thoughts on consciousness and AI, as did Hofstadter's G.E.B. The Dust Theory in Permutation City is

Greg Egan's Permutation City had a major influence on my own thoughts on consciousness and AI, as did Hofstadter's G.E.B. The Dust Theory in Permutation City is fairly mindblowing, and in a sense takes the ideas behind a Boltzmann brain to even further extremes. Epictetus' Enchiridion helped me massively with depression and anxiety over the past few years. I still read a few excerpts from it weekly. Much of it is self evident, but it's reassuring and reinforcing. The works of Terry Pratchett shaped my sense of humor, and my outlook on life. I would definitely be a different person today if I hadn't encountered Discworld at such an early age. They've made me a optimistic cynic. I'd highly recommend anybody interested in starting the Discworld books to start with Mort, and then the rest of the Death series in order (Hogfather in particular).