Undervaluing Wittgenstein isn't really consistent with what I've read in American philosophy at least. If you go by objective metrics (which would be the <i>Moneyball</i> approach), he consistently tops the citation counts, and beyond that, is considered central to many areas. Probably only Heidegger gives him a run for most broadly influential 20th-century philosopher (though it's hard to compare directly, because they've been influential on quite different groups).<p>He's been particularly influential on analytic philosophy via Saul Kripke, among other interpreters. In popularity contests, he routinely gets voted #1 most influential philosopher in polls of academic philosophers as well, e.g. in a 1999 poll of mostly UK/US academic philosophers (<a href="http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Lackey-What-are-the-modern-classics.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Lac...</a>) and in a Brian Leiter straw poll (<a href="http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/so-who-is-the-most-important-philosopher-of-the-past-200-years.html" rel="nofollow">http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/so-who-is-the-...</a>). The former one concludes that <i>Philosophical Investigations</i> is "the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations".<p>An interesting question might be who is undervalued on those lists: is there someone halfway down, or not on the list at all, who should be near the top?
I'll pipe up for <i>Impro</i>. One of my favorite books. Well, the first half is – it's a meditation on life and the universe as much as it is about theater, and it changed my mind in some cool ways. It's useful for anyone doing creative work, especially collaborative creative work, definitely including programmers. It's also very funny. The second half is about mask work and trance, which I was expecting to be fascinating, but it fell short of the sparkling magic of the first half. The material isn't as generally accessible and probably depends more on knowing how they use masks in production. Johnstone says that the masks have their own personalities, which actors take on when they wear them, and that's probably why he relies on them so much. His tastes in theater run away from personal expression toward simple universals. He's always telling actors to be more boring, and that the worst thing you can do is try to be interesting or clever.<p>Johnstone lives in my town in Western Canada. I ran into him in Safeway once. He's very tall and his eyes go in two different directions so he looks down at you rather quizzically from two different angles with his head tilted like a bird. I told him I loved his book, and he grunted "Good" and turned around and walked away. A few paces later he yelled "I'm glad it's useful!" and then went out of sight.<p>He's probably a genius. He was known in the London theatre scene of the 1950s, but felt stifled because he couldn't try whatever ideas he wanted without worrying what somebody famous would think. Then he went to teach at some remote place on Vancouver Island and discovered that he could think and do whatever he wanted. He liked that so much that he got a position in my town and stayed there permanently, presumably because there was nobody there who mattered!
A lot of great books, but it's unclear to me that most of these are actually "undervalued." Check out the blurb on the back cover of Philosophical Investigations, for example:<p><i>Immediately upon its posthumous publication in 1953, Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations was hailed as a masterpiece, and the ensuing years have confirmed this initial assessment. Today it is widely acknowledged to be the single most important philosophical work of the twentieth century.</i><p>Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has had a huge impact. From Amazon: "<i>Translated into more than seventeen languages, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the world's most widely used drawing instruction book.</i>"<p>Same with The Inner Game of Tennis -- it was groundbreaking when it came out in 1972 and had a huge impact not just on tennis, or even sports generally, but on musicians, artists, performers, or anything with a critical mental game. Back when I was working on my music degree it was required reading.<p>Is it possible that the author thinks these books are undervalued simply because many of them were released a while ago (when he was young or not yet born) and thus they aren't currently being hyped and/or in the limelight? That, or perhaps they're simply not that popular within the author's social circle?
+1 for <i>Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain</i>. It's superb.<p>I'd add <i>A Pattern Language</i> to the list. It's actually been very appropriately valued by the programming community, but <i>massively</i> undervalued by its intended audience of architects and urban planners. Should've been <i>the</i> architecture and planning book of the 20th century; instead most design professionals have never heard of it. Their loss!
It's a good list for cherry-picking a couple reading ideas, but the amateur comments about philosophy weren't well-received by this individual.<p>> I find that it’s thoroughly undervalued by philosophers<p>Doing okay so far...<p>>though, who see it as an arcane and eccentric work of little value<p>Not so sure about that...the timing for Wittgenstein's work might've been unfortunate, given that people were starting to become infatuated with existentialism around the same time. That was as more of a pop-culture phenomenon than an academic fad though.<p>>it’s a difficult thing to read<p>Okay again...<p>>Ironically for a book ignored by most philosophers, it contains the answers to a lot of their questions, and the method for answering all of them.<p>Hrm, no. A lot of the questions concerning philosophy and the method for answering all of them?<p>I sincerely doubt any work that could described in such terms would be as obscure as he proposes. This borders on the illogic of conspiracy theorists believing they've found some secret truth.<p>A bizarre flash of irrationality in an otherwise great post.
<i>Operators and Things</i>, a (supposed) first-person account of a schizophrenic who recovered from the condition and wrote about her experience. The second half of the book is where it really shines, since the author attempts to analyze her experience as a window into the inner workings of her cognition: how it broke down, what she experienced when it did, how it recovered itself, and what led to it. Since the author is anonymous, and talking about one's mind is very introspective, it's hard to take away real science from the book but I found it fascinating nonetheless. While I really dislike pseudoscientific explanations of brain functioning, after reading this I took up the idea that the conscious mind is more of a time-slice scheduler and message-passer than where the actual computation is done. So concentration is about controlling your unconscious indirectly, like training a puppy how to play fetch: you give it suggestions of what to do, and ignore it when it doesn't do that :).<p>I'm linking to the Amazon page, but IIRC the book is old enough to be in the public domain and there is a free text version somewhere.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Operators-Things-Inner-Life-Schizophrenic/dp/0615509282/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350244808&sr=8-1&keywords=operators+and+things" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Operators-Things-Inner-Life-Schizophre...</a>
For me, the most undervalued book is The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian y Morales.<p>It's a small book of very condensed and timeless wisdom in the form of maxims, written very poetically. It's not a self-help book, the kind you might picture. (any book is self-help in some way).<p>Perusing 5-10 maxims a day about 5 years ago heavily influenced the way I live my life, and still defines my character today.
I had a very similar thought one year ago - for me one of the undervalued books back then was "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie. The title was so smarmy and offputting for me (yeah, it's 70 years old...) that I skipped this gem for way too long, when it's basically everything you will ever need to deal with and manage people in a few hundred pages...
The interesting thing about Money Ball was that Billy Beane pioneered an analytic model for evaluating the true value vs subjectively perceived value of players.<p>This list was purely an opinion piece. It was the result of a subjective appraisal of both books, and the public opinion of them.<p>I'm quite disappointed.
6. ‘Principles‘ (pdf) by Ray Dalio.<p>Tried reading it. His life storey reads like an entrepreneur who started by trying to fit in (held several corporate jobs), failed (fired for insubordination) then started his own company.<p>The rest reads like a self-help book written by an amateur. Some gushing about physics and natural history (which a HBS graduate probably finds unfathomable and mysterious). Then some deep discussion of his own inner psyche; why do successful people assume its their own uniquness that made them succeed and not, for instance, market conditions or good advice?<p>Then I gave up. Is very wordy, very very wordy, and not many of the words worth slogging through. At least the part I saw.
"Ironically for a book ignored by most philosophers, it contains the answers to a lot of their questions, and the method for answering all of them."<p>I find this illuminating - philosopher's aren't concerned with answers. They are concerned with the questions. An interesting contrast between the scientific/engineering mindset and the philosophical mindset.
Also see:<p>"Ask Slashdot: Most Underappreciated Sci-Fi Writer?"<p><a href="http://www.ask.slashdot.org/story/12/08/08/2135246/ask-slashdot-most-underappreciated-sci-fi-writer" rel="nofollow">http://www.ask.slashdot.org/story/12/08/08/2135246/ask-slash...</a><p>Slashdot has many problems, but this was actually a pretty interesting and informative thread.
Happily read your blog post but the assertions about Wittgenstein rang alarm bells. It may be that his works are ignored in the UK right now, but paraphrasing Brian Magee: "Philosophy is subject to fashion". So it may just be a question of trend in philosophy.<p>> it contains the answers to a lot of their questions, and the method for answering all of them.<p>For me that sounds like "Node.js contains the method to solving all programming problems.".
+1 for Stephen Booth. I was fortunate enough to take his 17th century English poetry class at Cal. He's the only lecturer who could make poetry resonate with my geek brain.<p>It's funny how some classes stay with you over the years.
This post made me happily spend ~$100.<p>Quick tip for anyone trying to get older editions of some of these books: use Abebooks<p>For example, some of the drawing on the right reviews mention that the 1989 edition is better. I find this happens with many new editions of older books.<p>You can find near good as new editions of older books on Abebooks, at very reasonable prices. I used it to get a great copy of SICP, and just now ordered a version of How To Win Friends And Influence People published during Dale Carnegie's life, as Paul Graham recommended.
I've read Impro and it's a great book.<p>There is another book that I want to recommend to other Hacker News readers and that is 'Language in Thought and Action' by S.I. Hiyakawa[0]. Honestly, reading that changed my life.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-Edition/dp/0156482401" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-Edition/...</a>
I don't think a typical sampling of the HN crowd would be familiar with the work of J.D Salinger outside of Catcher and the Rye, but as someone who's loved these stories intensely since my mid-teens, I can't recommend them enough. In fact the mere mention of Seymour: An Introduction in the article sent shivers down my spine, reminding me of the amazing originality and artistry of this writer that I haven't experienced for several years now (I very rarely read fiction now). I won't bother summarizing the stories here, but if you have even a passing interest in zen, religion, literature or (at the risk of sounding pretentious) life itself then this is required reading in my book.
The book "Mastery" by George Leonard is a distilled version of "The Inner Game of Tennis." Highly recommended, and it can be had for a few bucks shipped on Amazon.
Baseball is largely zero sum. Reading isn't. Finding good books regardless of reputation is the way to go. But knowing what is good is hard, so you should trust persona recommendations first and ten reputation.