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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?
#142Riddley 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…
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 go ‘all in’ on the fun phonetics.
In the early 90s I went to a Banks reading (possibly Crow Road or The State of The Art) in Sheffield and during the Q&A he talked with great animation and detail about his new as yet untitled novel, which a few years later turned out to be Feersum Endjinn.
Sorely miss him.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm hearing this advice so often that it's pissing me off. The book is BS. (I've read it.) There, I said it. It's always "this book is hugely thought provoking" (pointing at you Daniel Gross), and never ever and expansion on why or what insights it actually contains that's interesting. It has mildly interesting sentences that feels deep (mostly because they're confusing). The book has developed into some BS signallin…
For me, I’ve found the book useful in understanding activities in a way that reduces my stress and helps me interact with people. Specifically, I don’t take things as seriously and try not to get wound up in arbitrary or not important rules. And that I get that some people get into the rules of an activity when I haven’t and that helps me understand where they are coming from. I suppose there are many ways to learn t…
I tend to fall in the "disappointed" set about this one.
It is short, but 1/3 into it I realized that the author is basically rephrasing the same concepts over and over and over.
Does it changes abruptly after the second half? I'll probably never know.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#144Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#145"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...
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#146Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal is pretty cool and supposedly was an inspiration for The Holy Mountain and Lost tv series
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#147"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…
I've read a portion of Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" and found it boring. Perhaps it would get interesting if I read more.
But now I'm reading "the fourth way" by Peter Ouspensky, the most famous (if we don't count Joseph Stalin) of his students and find it awesome. Very rational, explaining everything in an exciting, easy to grok way. It feels like a book I would recommend to everyone.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#148Riddley 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…
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.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#149Not exactly unknown but rarely mentioned these days:
Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life (1960) by Dr Maxwell Maltz, MD.
A foundational work in the field of self-image and more generally self-growth. Sort of the missing link between Hill-Carnegie and Covey, it's the first of its kind to shatter the body/mind duality and show facts in hand the power of the whole. A positively enriching read, containing a few invaluable ideas.
If you're a Zen or Stoic like me, you'll find the traces of these roots in there, the lineage of ideas.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#150I highly recommend the English/Canadian author Matthew Hughes and his novels "Majestrum" and "The Gist Hunter & Other Stories". His prose is just beautiful to read, you really do savour every word.
An even more obscure writer would be Christopher Evans and especially his novella "Chimeras". This is set in a medieval world in which some people have the Talent, an ability to create dazzling works of art out of thin air - just pure thought-stuff. An act of mental creation which appeals to the computer programmer in me.