Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read? • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by HedgedHuman » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:54 AM UTC

Dropping Ashes on the Buddha

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152640.Dropping_Ashes_on...

Paraphrasing what one reviewer said on GR, it's a good read if you are taking life too seriously, or, the complete opposite.

I didn't get it the first time I read it.

I do find myself going back to the riddles and the poems in the essays now and then when I feel I'm stuck, blocked, or trapped in a loop. It made me ... more humble?

Also a good read if you just want to learn more about Korean Buddhism and Kong-an's in general.

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

#222

Post by AlexCoventry » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

jdkee wrote: post #204

This title may be relatively well-known among the HN crowd, but Interface by Stephen Bury aka Neal Stephenson is an amazingly prescient read. I find it Stephenson's most insightful and critical work that reflects contemporary America.

That's a favorite of mine.

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

#223

Post by yesenadam » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

ttctciyf wrote: post #216

yesenadam wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came across A Life Of One's Own as a teenager, and she became one of my heroes in courage and self-exploration, a great inspiration. The sequels An Experiment in Leisure and On Not Being Able To Paint are also excellent. On Not Being Able To Paint initially didn't seem as interesting, but I picked up my copy again 20 years later and found that what she'd learnt about art was almost exactly what I'd learnt from 5 ye…

> she became one of my heroes The book had a similar impact on myself & partner after we picked it up randomly from a clearance box in a used book store. The idea that truly owning one's life, thoughts, behaviour and so on is a project to undertake - and not (as might be commonly assumed for successful healthy indiviuals) an effortlessly given state of affairs - seems remarkable for the time she was writing. From tha…

Awesome! :-) I often tell people about her, but have come across her mentioned anywhere extremely rarely, hardly ever. I believe she was a trained psychologist before she started those books! She realized all that training had taught her nothing about herself, so set out to find out for herself. There's a fascinating struggle between her 'trained expert' side yielding to the 'naïve observer' side.

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

#224

Post by pattusk » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:56 AM UTC

Bergson's Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

Not exactly unknown but Bergson isn't as fashionable as he used to be and often derided for his belief in spiritualism and failure to understand Einstein's relativity.

Yet I've always found his core argument about duration and science (that science only measure discrete moments but never the full motion) has always fascinated me.

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

#225

Post by rramadass » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

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.

Exactly! This book has to be read with Nassim Taleb's books for a healthy dose of skepticism.

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

#226

Post by neuro_image3 » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

drongoking wrote: post #211

rmason wrote: post #66

The hidden persuaders by Vance Packard I read this book as a kid, it changed how I view the world and I've never forgotten it's lessons. It shows how the ad world is working hard to persuade you. It convinced me to always question what are represented as facts by ads or the media. A healthy skepticism has served me very well. Most people never deeply question and Packard is correct that there's an entire industry try…

Sounds very interesting, but is there a more recent book covering similar material? This dates from 1957 and I suspect there is more to say about it now.

"Trust me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday

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

#227

Post by bordercases » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 3:00 AM UTC

awwx wrote: post #117

bordercases wrote: post #41

Foundations 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…

Smart Choices by John S. Hammond?

Yep, uses many of the same conceptual primitives as FoDA but doesn't involve math. I think thinking through the math is enriching though so I wouldn't pick one over the other, and FoDA makes some clear conceptual bridges between different representations in decision-making that I would want to highlight again as FoDA's value.

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

#228

Post by bookofjoe » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 3:03 AM UTC

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…

If you like this book you'll love "The Perfectionists" by Simon Winchester; https://www.amazon.com/Perfectionists-Precision-Engineers-Cr...

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

#229

Post by bordercases » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

neplus wrote: post #87

bordercases wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are some extremely timely books, can't help but think that was on purpose or that you're simply good at keeping up!

Thanks very much. These were all read before the 2016 election, if that's what you mean. I think they are important books for our times certainly though.

USA seems like it's going to hit a crisis as fundamental productivity metrics have split from stock valuations, in favor of stocks... either the Fed has cracked the inflation nut with Modern Monetary Theory's promise of unlimited liquidity or we're absolutely super-duper screwed.

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

#230

Post by bordercases » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

syshum wrote: post #178

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope something is done about this. I worry that our country is largely losing its ability to produce anything .

While Manufacturing in the US is down, no doubt. We are still the 2nd largest manufacturer. I do hope we return to being #1, though that becomes less likely every day.

USA will recover more quickly from a manufacturing slump due to the other assets it has or can acquire. Many other economies are dependent to some extent on the US. But it's going to be a big dip globally.