Obscure books you think should be read - and why

[Max]

I found quite dificult to find any book of the childe cycle. Also for a casual SF reader is quite obscure.

But I agree with you that is one of the all-time classics of SF.

PD: I life in Spain so that could explain why this books are hard to find for me

[montealan]

Anything by B. Traven
He wrote Treasure of the Sierra Madre but his jungle books (five in the series) were great. The books cover the treatment of the peons in Mexico during the early part of the 20th Century, and the eventual uprising: General From the Jungle, March to the Montera are two of the titles I remember.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by hapax legomenon

Speaking of Hungarian literature, GÉZA CSÁTH http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Cs%C3%A1th is also a good read. Magician's Garden was published in the USA 20 years ago or so.

Zelda Pinwheel, thank you so much for those online Hungarian titles.

I agree, that Will Cuppy is a classic.

thanks for more hungarian litterature ! and i'm thrilled that you are interested in Karinthy ; he really is brilliant.

[BenG]

The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz is one of my all time favorite books. It's a adult novel by the noted children's author Russell Hoban.
It's not really a fantasy, though there is a large element of fantasy in it. It's about a map-maker (he makes maps to find whatever you desire - water, love, money, etc), his son and their relationship and, of course, a lion.

The opening lines:

There were no lions any more. There had been lions once. Sometimes in the shimmer of the heat on the plains the motion of their running still flickered on the dry wind — tawny, great, and quickly gone. Sometimes the honey-colored moon shivered to the silence of a ghost-roar on the rising air.
There were no chariots any more. The chariots, wind-bereft and roadless in the night, slept with their tall wheels hushed in the tomb of the last king.

[Timber]

I loved The Long Ships by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson. It was a historical fiction story of a viking in the time of Harald Bluetooth.

[Slite]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Would you really call "Dorai" an obscure book? It's one of the all-time classics of SF!

Oh my... Been ages since I read the Childe Cycle ... Are they available as e-books somewhere? If so, definitly a must for my collection.

[rebecca12345]

Obscure but fabulous? The Lost Daughter by Daralyse Lyons. I don't know one other person who read it but I know my life changed when I read it and I'm telling everyone I know!!!

[wayspooled]

Originally Posted by GreatBear

Just thought this thread might be fun if we listed favorite semi-obscure titles available freely online. (Or should this post be its own thread? Moderators?) Anyway, here's a few:

---
Lone Star Ranger -- Zane Grey. I'd never read him before but I'd only really heard about his Sackett novels. Possible inspiration for TV's Lone Ranger. Available here at MR.

The Zane Grey works may well have gotten obscure but they were enormously popular before I started reading any westerns. The Sackett books though were by Louis L'Amour and a zillion western fans probably wouldn't think him obscure, he was probably the number 1 western writer, writing up through the 70's. I think Zane Grey would have been considered the number 1 before L'Amour. L'Amour wrote some pretty good autobiographical short stories too. Heh, L'Amour was the main cause of my getting "Doesn't pay attention in class" written on a middle school report card. I always seem to have had his paperbacks stuck inside my schoolbooks, reading them during class.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Lobolover

that one russian book published in english in 1926,"the land of sennikov" I think.You know,the one it was ILLEGAL to own in the US.

Ok....I am intrigued. Anyone know the title of this book?

[WT Sharpe]

I don't know how "obscure" this book is, but The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer is well worth reading.

Eric Hoffer was a self-educated longshoreman who wrote books in his spare time. This one is an interesting foray into the minds of fanatics of all types; a highly readable investigation of people who commit themselves fully to movements and their reasons for doing so. It's perhaps even more relevant today than when it was first published in 1951.

While he was President, Dwight D. Eisenhower received a letter from Robert Biggs, a terminally ill World War II veteran, who complained that the President's recent speeches displayed hedging and uncertainty. "We wait for someone to speak for us and back him completely if the statement is made in truth." Biggs wrote.

As part of his response, Eisenhower wrote:

"The mental stress and burden which this form of government imposes has been particularly well recognized in a little book about which I have spoken on several occasions. It is 'The True Believer,' by Eric Hoffer; you might find it of interest. In it, he points out that dictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems--freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions."

As someone who is not immune to the temptation to certainty in the correctness of my own opinions and intolerance towards dissenting viewpoints, over the years I have found this book to be invaluable for restoring a sense of balance and perspective.

I haven't been able to find an electronic version of the work.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by bbusybookworm

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)
by Richard P. Feynman & Ralph Leighton.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

completely agree. Feynman is not only brilliant, but also hilarious.

I believe I read of this in Feynman's Six Easy Pieces, or perhaps the follow-up, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. His van was famously adorned with Feynman Diagrams. Most people had no idea what they were, but occasionally he would be asked by strangers why he had Feynman diagrams all over his van, only to be told, "Because I'm Richard Feynman!"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-tufte-princip

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I believe I read of this in Feynman's Six Easy Pieces, or perhaps the follow-up, Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. His van was famously adorned with Feynman Diagrams. Most people had no idea what they were, but occasionally he would be asked by strangers why he had Feynman diagrams all over his van, only to be told, "Because I'm Richard Feynman!"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-tufte-princip

Speaking of Six easy Pieces, anyone intrested should definately try to get hold of the Audio of the Lectures.

Listening to him Talk in his own voice, is definitely something else.

[Gideon]

House of Leaves - just an interesting, compelling book. It's "odd" in a way that might leave you imagining it's just a gimmick but it really isn't - the structure of the pages and the odd story, footnotes, appendixes... they really create a surreal, amazing experience.

It's something like Stephen King, Jorges Luis Borges, Nabokov's Pale Fire and the Talmud!

It actually has a rather impressive wikipedia page as well.

[wayspooled]

The most important business book I ever read was "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. Argh.. business book! <spit> heh.. No really. It was an 80's business book written in the form of a novel, about the life of a plant manager and an old college professor of his. It sounds horrible but I trusted someones review and it ... changed the way I viewed every business process which is to say, everything in a business. And quite a few processes outside business, including relationships. Business wise, for example - it taught me to view bottlenecks as tools, not adversaries to be overcome - instead, it taught me to "place/move" them to the part of a process which was the easiest to increase or decrease the throughput. It's just a book that everyone should read that is involved with any kind of business or educational environment. There are even lessons to be learned for charities, but .. modified..

Oh, and there is nothing dated about it.. it's as valid today as the day it was written.

There's another great book I read that has to do with how to motivate people, in the situation for which I read it, people I was supervising - via a reward system rather than the ingrained punishment system of .. well, forever's business practice... Not some stupid cheerleader, positive thinking book though... In a nutshell, it taught that you manage via reward by never rewarding poor behavior.. and taught about all the types of reward there were other than just money. For example, not everyone works for the biggest buck, most people (bearing in mind "adequate" pay) have one of the following things that is "most" important to them - job security, a comfortable work environment, performance recognition to their peers, availability of flex time, some freedom to come and go as they need, other things. And you don't have to treat everyone exactly the same, they are all different - you have to treat everyone fairly. Beyond their basic living, they all have different needs and motivations. And you motivate performance by rewarding those - and it only works, and it works great... if you never, ever, reward poor performance. You never let bad performance go unremarked.

Unfortunately I don't remember the name of it and hopefully I can find this thread when I run across it. It's a thin little book, only about 70 pages, but it sure was packed with interesting thoughts.

[wayspooled]

Thought of another - The Glory and The Dream by William Manchester. An excellent narrative history of America, basically how we made the world in which we're living now. Remarkably interesting.