Stoner by John Williams. It is a slow burner, but it’s worth the effort. It’s novel about an average person living an average life, but the prose captures the emotion of life.
Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
101–110 of 399 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#102Foundations of Decision Analysis by Hubbard. Most people here may have scraped work on decision theory. But Hubbard turns the field into a coherent skillset. Otherwise you're just sitting around talking about decision models instead of using and practicing with them, for everyday living. This is what Hubbard gives you. "Smart Choices" is a book which may be better known but complements FoDA nicely as an entry-level s…
Foundations of Decision Analysis by Hubbard. Sounds interesting, but I couldn't find this in a quick preliminary search. Do you have a link handy? The only book titled "Foundations of Decision Analysis" I came across was by Howard and Abbas. Also, not sure if this is related to the Hubbard you refer to or not, but there's a gentleman named Douglas Hubbard who has written some really excellent material in this area. I…
Sorry I meant Howard.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#103A Reverence for Wood by Eric Sloane.
Accomplished its eponymous goal in a brief 110 pages, many of which are beautiful lithographic sketches.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#104Severely underappreciated (IMO) is British psychiatrist Marion Milner's A Life of One's Own[1] (1934, as "Joanna Field") - an extraordinary recounting of the author's subjective yet diligent observational study of her own awareness and mental processes from first principles and with as few assumptions as possible.
The results were unexpected!
> As soon as I began to study my perception, to look at my own experience, I found that there were different ways of perceiving and that the different ways provided me with different facts. There was a narrow focus which meant seeing life as if from blinkers and with the centre of awareness in my head; and there was a wide focus which meant knowing with the whole of my body, a way of looking which quite altered my perception of whatever I saw. And I found that the narrow focus way was the way of reason. If one was in the habit of arguing about life it was very difficult not to approach sensation with the same concentrated attention and so shut out its width and depth and height. But it was the wide focus way that made me happy.
The book is full of arresting and innovative insights on awareness and perception. For example, the spotlight analogy for "covert attention" is often attributed to Francis Crick writing in 1984[2], but fifty years earlier Milner writes:
> At any moment there exist in the fringes of my thought faint patternings which can be brought to distinction when I look at them. Like a policeman with a flash-light I can throw the bright circle of my awareness where I choose; if any shadow or movement in the dim outer circle of its rays arouses my suspicion, I can make it come into the circle of brightness and show itself for what it is. But the beam of my attention is not of fixed width, I can widen or narrow it as I choose.[3]
On the topic of first person recountings of mental journeys, but from the other side of the analyst's couch, it's also worth mentioning Operators and Things: The inner life of a schizophrenic[4] a powerful first person account of schizophrenic hallucination and ideation which comes across a little more like a novel than an objective account but is fascinating nonetheless.
1: https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/10/11/a-life-of-ones-own-...
2: e.g. "(The analogy was first suggested by Francis Crick, the geneticist.)" - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-cons...
3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ntg6OE7haSgC&pg=PA77
4: Online at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/13476 it seems - I read it in paperback in the 80s and only turned that site up with google just now, so ... but the PDF seems to work.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#105In no particular order, and some of these being more "highly underrated" as opposed to "unknown", with the notable exception of Smith's Wealth of Nations which is disturbingly un- and mis-read:
1. Grammatical Man, by Jeremy Campbell (1982)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/grammatical-man-information-e...
My introduction to information theory and its diverse set of interrelated applications and phenomena.
2. Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity, by William Ophuls (1977)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/ecology-and-the-politics-of-s...
Distills the Limits to Growth issue to its essence, and looks at the political implications, with a set of estimates of political developments which have played out closely.
3. An Inquiry to the Nature and Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith (1776)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/inquiry-into-the-nature-and-c...
The best-known, but least-read, and most mis-read book on this list. Smith isn't perfect and has flaws. But his message is extraordinarily misunderstood and misrepresented. Even where he is wrong, he is instructive.
4. Commercialism and Journalism, by Hamilton Holt (1909)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/commercialism-and-journalism/...
A short but extraordinarily illuminating read on the influence of money and advertising on the press, coming near the beginning of the era of mass media.
5. Unix Power Tools, by Mike Loukides et al (1997)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/unix-power-tools/oclc/2584502...
The book that really got me "over the hump" in understanding the Unix environment and tools. Now somewhat dated, though still highly useful.
6. A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright (2004)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/short-history-of-progress/ocl...
An exploration of the story, question, and future, of progress.
7. Entropy and the Economic Process, by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/entropy-law-and-the-economic-...
A re-thinking of economics taking thermodynamics into account. Famously difficult to read, but well worth the effort.
8. On the Damned Human Race, by Mark Twain (1962)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/mark-twain-on-the-damned-huma...
A darker, angrier, more bitter side of Twain, cracking open the sanitised version those familiar with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn will know, and giving an insight to the darker side of late 19th and early 20th century America.
9. Energy and Civilization, by Vaclav Smil (2017)
https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-and-civilization-a-his...
A re-casting of history, not according to spiritual or cultural progress, Great Men, or social dynamics, but the access to and utilisation of energy sources.
10. Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations, by Bernhard J. Stern (1937)
https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag...
A fascinating exploration of the organised opposition to numerous significant technological innovations through the ages, contrary to the conventional story told by mainstream economic and innovation models and stories. Stern's research assistant at the time he was working on this topic went on to become known as a science fiction author, and based one of his first works on this notion: Isaac Asimov.
On the question of compiling such lists: I've recently started keeping a research journal in which I'm trying to capture works of significance that I've read, vaguely inspired by both index-card methods (such as Zettelkasten or POIC) and bullet journals.
The organisation is "BOTI" -- best of the interval.
I will start a two-page spread, dated, of a specific class of entries -- works, videos, authors, ideas, etc. -- and when that closes, start another. Periodically (about every month, for now) I'll select the best of those works for a BOTM list, and at the end of a year, a BOTY list.
Or at least that's the idea.
This may address the question of keeping track of the most significant works (or authors, concepts, ideas, etc.) over time, which otherwise tend to become a bit of a jumble.
The BOTI list and periodic aggregations themselves resemble round-robin databases, or ring or circular buffers or files, though without actually rewriting each specific list. The initial capture levels remain accessible (in the journal) for revisiting, should something prove to have been more significant on subsequent reflection than initially appeared.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#106*The Devil's Dictionary[1] by Ambrose Bierce, a collection of sarcastic definitions, some of which are still funny today:
> LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
> SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#107Not exactly a book, Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States. (1)
It raises some concerns that folks in this forum are probably interested in and could do something about. Things like forcing US companies doing business in China to transfer dual-use technologies, the lack of US suppliers for certain goods, like high tenacity polyester fiber, domestic production of PCBs, specialized glass for NVG systems, a shortage of software engineers, but also shortages in skilled trades, like welders.
The dominance of the Chinese in certain critical industries is also problematic. For example one manufacturer produces 70% of small drones, which then creates secondary attack surfaces, like lack of security on the drone’s link. Another is the Chinese takeover of solar panel manufacturing, which creates a potential energy security risk.
For those skeptical of any report from the current administration, I would refer you to Ash Carter’s Inside the Five-Sided Box (2) which raises many of the same issues.
(1) https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/05/2002048904/-1/-1/1/ASS...
(2) https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Five-Sided-Box-Lifetime-Leader...
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#108Lost in Mongolia: Rafting the World's Last Unchallenged River By Colin Angus
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#109Bill Harvey: Mind Magic ⌘ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3573948-mind-magic
Make sure you get one of the older editions with mind drills in it.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#110I thoroughly enjoyed “Constellation Games” by Leonard Richardson who coincidentally also wrote BeautifulSoup, the python HTML parser.