The married man sex life primer 2011 by Kay. Horrible title. Very useful book for me as a husband.
He wrote a similar book called Mindfull Attraction Plan for none male audience.
Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
31–40 of 399 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#32The Priceless Gift by Cornelius Hirschberg, a very down-to-earth book by a man who gave himself an education by reading books on the New York subway. Although a bit dated, it includes great recommendations on how and what to read to become a widely read and curious person. Very motivating too!
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#33I remember getting Semiology of Graphics from the Palo Alto library around 2006. At the time it was sort of legendary and out of print, but it looks like it's since been reprinted. I think you can get most of the ideas from newer books, but it's well done and clearly ahead of its time. https://www.amazon.com/Semiology-Graphics-Diagrams-Networks-... https://medium.com/@karlsluis/before-tufte-there-was-bertin-... Inter…
> I also enjoy reading what people though the computing future would be like
This prompts me to propose (although it's not obscure) "Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea" by John Haugeland. It's an AI textbook that is extremely readable and inviting - the best I've seen as a purely readable text, though probably far too basic for most readers here - but that is entirely drawn from the realm of "good old-fashioned AI", i.e. things like logic systems that have very little in common with what is understood as practical AI nowadays. Combine the readability of the book with the apparent hopelessness of its premise, and you have a perfectly nostalgic experience.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#34"Light and Color in the Outdoors" by Marcel Minnaert. The book goes into the physics of a lot of outdoor phenomena; you will be amazed at the things you never noticed or thought about before reading it. "The History and Social Influence of the Potato" is a pretty good time. "Politics of Qat: The Role of a Drug in Ruling Yemen" may sound way too niche, but it's fascinating as a study of transportation in a drug econom…
Funny coincidence, I bought the Minnaert book recently! Especially as a rendering engineer, it's absolutely fantastic.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#35Your harmony book sets a high bar for obscurity! I'm sure many of us with an interest in harmony would like to know more - please tell us something about it. A book I am very fond of that I don't think is widely known (though it's not in the same league as your suggestion) is "Resisting the Virtual Life", a 1995 collection of essays on the theme of cyber-wariness published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights impri…
Yizhak Sadai, formerly head of the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, was a brilliant teacher and philosopher. Many of the best musicians in Israel studied with him at some point during their career, even if for a brief period of time (As a recent example: Tom Oren, winner of the last Thelonious Monk Piano Competition, was his student for a year or so). I had the privilege to study with him for a year, and this book used to accompany our lessons.
The book is a thorough explanation of western harmony in its very basic aspects, from first principles. It also includes criticism of other, more famous music theory books, which is very interesting. One thing I love about it is how every theoretical concept comes first from what is perceived (hence "phenomenological"). A brief example of that is how some chords, which look like dominant chords if you look only on their notes, are sometime subdominant chords, because of the context in which they are played.
Some quotes:
On the approach of the book: "The conventional analytic approach as taught in academies is based primarily upon the depiction of the WRITTEN content of a composition by means of symbols and concepts inherent to the accepted analytic code. This analysis however, which describes mainly what is SEEN, does not always succeed in describing what is HEARD - the perceptual musical essence"
His definition of tonality which I loved so much that I had to memorise it: "Tonality constitutes the organisation of a given number of tones in a manner which creates among them differences of kinetic potential."
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#36“Finite and infinite games” by James Carse. Philosophy and hugely thought provoking.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#37I remember getting Semiology of Graphics from the Palo Alto library around 2006. At the time it was sort of legendary and out of print, but it looks like it's since been reprinted. I think you can get most of the ideas from newer books, but it's well done and clearly ahead of its time. https://www.amazon.com/Semiology-Graphics-Diagrams-Networks-... https://medium.com/@karlsluis/before-tufte-there-was-bertin-... Inter…
I would recommend "Graphics and Graphic Information Processing" by Bertin over La Semiologie simply because the latter reads more like a reference book where Bertin is extremely thorough. But GGIP gets straight to the point and can frame your thinking while going through Semiologie such that you won't lose your way.
Unfortunately GGIP is expensive so I would try to find it at your local library. (French copies are online).
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#38The Lumberjacks by Donald Mackay https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7797112-the-lumberjacks. Tales recorded from British Colombian lumberjacks in the 19th century.
I found it completely by accident, picking it up at random off the shelf in my university's library while procrastinating.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#39Self-directed behavior - Watson This is a textbook for behavior change course, but it is 100% practical (project to pass subject is to change some kind of behavior) Only tested information Science-based. This book can change your life but you wont find it mentioned anywhere
Very good book. I forgot how I stumbled into it but it's pretty much the text for changing behavior. Only person coming close is BJ Fogg's work on tiny habits who really just distilled the material into "You won't believe THAT ONE TRICK, psychologists will HATE you!".
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#40Hopefully this is not a submarine for Scribd- the only location where I could legally find a pdf! :). The library system appears to have copies as well. I’ve always wanted to really learn music theory, but it’s gonna have to wait til I really learn Leetcode algos, my primary goal for this year. My contribution: Richard Dawkins called Julian Jaynes's 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicam…
Haha, no, though it would have been an impressive submarine. I have a low quality copy I could share. If you do happen to go through the book and have questions/want to discuss it with someone, feel free to contact me! my twitter is in the profile.