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Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#151

Post by qwerty456127 »

peignoir wrote: post #145
carapace wrote: post #136

"Neurospeak" by Robert Masters A psychoactive book, science-based (YMMV). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/897536.Neurospeak - - - - Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" Impossible to categorize, incredibly challenging. Gurdjieff was a genius on the level of Leonardo da Vinci, but where Leonardo studied the outer world, Gurdjieff studied the inner world. This three-volume tome is his effort to encode an…

Gurdjieff the cult leader / charlatan? Who used to paint birds in yellow to sell them as canaries? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff I agree he is brilliant but at the same level as the founder of the Scientology or other cult leaders who became awfully rich Talking about a good book to read on cults / religion : https://infidels.org/library/historical/unknown/three_impost...

IMHO it doesn't matter much who the author of a book was and what other things did he do if you can extract useful information from the book. What if Charles Ponzi himself would have personally invented a (real) cure for cancer or something before he died? Would we dismiss it just because he was a professional charlatan? I believe we would rather rest it to actually find out whether it works or doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#152

Post by atombender »

geden wrote: post #142
atombender wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riddley Walker was probably also a big influence on Iain M. Banks' Feersum Endjinn [1]. Most of the chapters are narrated by Bascule, a simple-minded (but certainly not stupid) young man who writes phonetically: Woak up. Got dresd. Had brekfast. Spoke wif Ergates thi ant who sed itz juss been wurk wurk wurk 4 u lately master Bascule, Y dont u ½ a holiday? The novel is a bit out of character for Banks, and reminds me…

I’m not sure I’d describe it as out of character. Phonetically styled narrative from characters pops up in several Banks novels. I’d argue the The Barbarian’s Scottish dialect in The Bridge was a precursor to Bascule. There are also smattering’s of fun phonetic speech in the first few Culture novels. Most memorably from Fwi-song the prophet of the Eaters cult. I had the feeling with Feersum Endjinn Banks decided to g…

I mean the story, sorry, not the style. It's one of Banks' few self-contained sci-fi novels, and it's set in a rather odd universe that fits into the "dying Earth" tradition of dystopian sci-fi (Wolfe's New Sun/Short Sun/Long Sun sequence, Vance's Dying Earth, etc.) more than in Banks' more utopian/panoramic Culture novels. His other standalones, Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist, are much closer to his Culture novels, for example.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#153

Post by james_s_tayler »

Sleight of Mouth.

It's an NLP book unlike any other. It presents 12 (if I recall correctly) patterns of speech that are highly effective at changing people's perception of something. It's just super practical and really helped me out when I read it close to a decade ago. Never heard anyone else bring mention it.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#154

Post by mindcrime »

iQuercus wrote: post #140
mindcrime wrote: post #100

How To Measure Anything [1] by Douglas Hubbard. The basic gist of the book goes something like this: in the real world (especially in a business setting) there are many things which are hard to measure directly, but which we may care about. Take, for example, "employee morale" which matters because it may affect, say, retention, or product quality. Hubbard suggests that we can measure (many|most|all|??) of these thin…

It’s a good recipe for making a lot of estimation errors. Worse, it will leave you feeling more confident than you should be. Then, when you least expect it, it’ll blow up in your face.

There is merit to what you say, but that's the reason you have to have actual domain experts working on building the model, and why the calibration training matters.

That said:

"All models are wrong, but some are useful"

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#156

Post by teh_klev »

geden wrote: post #142
atombender wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riddley Walker was probably also a big influence on Iain M. Banks' Feersum Endjinn [1]. Most of the chapters are narrated by Bascule, a simple-minded (but certainly not stupid) young man who writes phonetically: Woak up. Got dresd. Had brekfast. Spoke wif Ergates thi ant who sed itz juss been wurk wurk wurk 4 u lately master Bascule, Y dont u ½ a holiday? The novel is a bit out of character for Banks, and reminds me…

I’m not sure I’d describe it as out of character. Phonetically styled narrative from characters pops up in several Banks novels. I’d argue the The Barbarian’s Scottish dialect in The Bridge was a precursor to Bascule. There are also smattering’s of fun phonetic speech in the first few Culture novels. Most memorably from Fwi-song the prophet of the Eaters cult. I had the feeling with Feersum Endjinn Banks decided to g…

> I’d argue the The Barbarian’s Scottish dialect in The Bridge was a precursor to Bascule.

I'd certainly agree with you there. He's variously introduced his readers to Scots, the Doric and the vernacular in his books over many years. Feersum Endjinn was a fun read, especially for me as a Scot who has an interest in the Scots language.

> Sorely miss him.

I do too. I'd met him at various times over the length of his career. Always a bloody nice guy and always self deprecating in a way you knew was very genuine. I always relished him taking the mickey out of his famous neighbour in North Queensferry, Gordon Brown, every now and again.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#157

Post by galimaufry »

The Bachelors by de Montherlant. About two socially isolated impoverished turn-of-the-century aristocrats. The plot is very bitter and the main characters are awful people so you'd expect it to be fairly cynical, but it isn't at all, really sympathetic in fact. The narration is insightful and hilarious.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#159

Post by mellosouls »

Sophistifunk wrote: post #148
mellosouls wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how it starts off, be warned: On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and c…

Can you get it in English? I'd rather go to the dentist than attempt to read more than a paragraph or two of that gibberish.

It's not for everyone. Once I'd got my head round it I found it easy to follow and beautiful.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#160

Post by kragen »

mellosouls wrote: post #12
mellosouls wrote: post #8

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is not unknown but not hugely popular. Post apocalyptic novel written in a made up language (think Clockwork Orange). Poetic and deeply moving account of a boy's journey through a world where scientific knowledge has devolved to primitive ritual and incantation; and his dawning realisation that we lost everything . I've never read anything else like it. https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…

Here's how it starts off, be warned: On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and c…

This is how we speak today, to the ear of a speaker of Anglo-Saxon or, here in Argentina, Latin. Only more so.
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