Dunno about changing my life the most, but this is what comes to mind, because it helped me accept my mortality:
The Dalai Lama’s Book of Wisdom[0] includes a page on the practice of considering each day a number of ways (eight, here) a person might die, towards dying with more grace when the time comes. I started practicing and found it an engaging creative exercise. It’s also helped me take better care of other living things, and to see non-human animals as people, too. I’m still part of numerous kill-chains (weeding the garden, turning the compost, walking, using electricity, eating plants and animals, paying U.S. taxes and benefiting from the infrastructure, and so many more), and I accept that as part of living.
nearing the end of their life professors tend give one last lecture reflecting their life lessons. most people don't know it's their literal last lecture, but Randy was diagnosed with terminal cancer at 40s and he is an interesting guy I wish I could've met.
another one stretches slightly over 100 is The Brain That Changes Itself.
I think that at a similar sort of length are the lengthier essays in the London Review of Books, New Left Review, etc. Some of them impinge on rather controversial topics (and would of course elicit some disagreement), but they’re perfectly good reads nevertheless (though I suppose that that’s orthogonal to merely pointing out that I, rightly or wrongly, ended up influenced by this sort of thing.)
Tom Crewe wrote of ‘The Strange Death of Municipal England’ on 15 June 2016 (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n24/tom-crewe/the-strang...). I suppose that at the time I was broadly a utilitarian and had very évolué/neoliberal politics. This exposed something of a tension between them and I ended up at a rather different place politically. I suppose that I am rather a slave to, if not passions, pangs of guilt, and so occasionally a day or two will be upended in (often useless) politicking of one sort or another—a moderately important feature of my life. The other article that had some effect was Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘The Invention of the Indigène’ (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n02/mahmood-mamdani/the-...).
The second effect, I suppose, was to broadly influence my intellectual outlook: first, in a rather uncritically admiring sort of way, and then, beginning with the observation that the book reviews never mentioned the books, more critically: untranslated French is a good reminder that I ought to read French newspapers more often, but when will the historians be reminded e.g. to understand elementary probability? Useless chattering is an excellent pastime however, and the LRB was terribly good fodder.
Ooh interesting constraint. The Goal: A Business Graphic Novel[1] is just a little over 100 pages but very easy to read in a single sitting so surely still counts. It's more-or-less the same as the full novel, which is what inspired The Phoenix Project. For a book genuinely under 100 pages, I'll go with The Little Prince[2]. Just a delightful story that reminds you to focus on what's important in life.
"Letters To A Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke. There is a new edition of this work that now includes the letters the young poet wrote in response, long thought to be lost. I plan to pick that one up in addition to my Stephen Mitchell translation.
jonathan Livinsgton Seagull and Illusions Both by Richard Bach were very influential in my late twenties.
In mY thirties I was glad I found Mastery by George Leonard. All three of them less than 100 pages to close to 100 pages.
Thanks for sharing Mark Cuban’s book. It has some very tangible and practical words of wisdom that aren’t just masturbatory feel good stories in there.
It’s quite old and maybe overplayed but I enjoy THE ART OF MONEY GETTING or GOLDEN RULES FOR MAKING MONEY By P.T. Barnum. His insights might be about 200 years old, but they are in the exact same vein, and perhaps a bit more tasteful language.
Ted Nelson, "Computer Lib / Dream Machines", OCLC 03073731, 69 pages according to a library record that I found, though I would have guessed it had somewhat more than that. Amazing book that introduced the word "hypertext" among other things. I read it in high school and it was one of the influences making me still a computer geek N years later.
Letters to a Young Contrarian - Christopher Hitchens
The Old Man and the Sea - Hemmingway
Both gave me an appreciation of the writers that led me to read more of their work which ultimately made changes in my life. With Hitchens his work on religion had a profound impact on my world view, with Hemmingway it gave me an appreciation for good writing and story.
"Letter to a Christian Nation" (96 pgs) addressed many of the problems I had with my Christian upbringing and allowed me to finally be comfortable with the idea of giving it up. I have been much happier since reading it.
I think the problem is that a number of books that claim to have direct impact on your life/career are perfectly capable of being written as a 100 page book, but are stuffed with repetition to pad it 300-400 pages. Reading through these can be quite a slog.
Also, to keep up with the marketing machine, the authors churn out a new title every 3 years or so. It would be a few news ideas and lots of ideas from the older books rehashed. It would be much better if the new sections are clearly demarcated in the book. Not sure if the author is to blame though. It might be the publishing house or a general perception among readers that more is better. Shelling out money for a small book might not feel as justifiable for some readers.
What ever the case, at least for the self help books, it would be great if the authors have the liberty to write shorter books. It would save the author's time, the publisher's time, the millions of readers' time, not to mention, reams of paper.
I fell victim to this when in my young naïveté, I believed all books are worth reading.
There are a few books in this category that I want to read, but I value my time too much to read them.
Although I understand the sentiment and the lamentation of ever-decreasing attention spans, I'm just not convinced that verbosity is a prerequisite for profoundness.
The Dalai Lama’s Book of Wisdom[0] includes a page on the practice of considering each day a number of ways (eight, here) a person might die, towards dying with more grace when the time comes. I started practicing and found it an engaging creative exercise. It’s also helped me take better care of other living things, and to see non-human animals as people, too. I’m still part of numerous kill-chains (weeding the garden, turning the compost, walking, using electricity, eating plants and animals, paying U.S. taxes and benefiting from the infrastructure, and so many more), and I accept that as part of living.
[0] https://www.worldcat.org/title/dalai-lamas-book-of-wisdom/oc...