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Seth Godin

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What's the overlooked gem, the book I haven't read that I must?

Every reader has at least one, that book that never caught on, or is out of print, but that resonates so much with people that they can't forget it. I still remember reading "The Republic of Tea" on the Sunday it came out years ago. And of course, Steve Pressfield's "The War of Art" which I've purchased and handed out a dozen times so far...

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  • David Soul

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    Feb 17 2011: "Designing Freedom" - Stafford Beer.

    Includes prescient essays "the Threat to All We Hold Most Dear", "The Future That Can Be Demanded Now" and a "A Liberty Machine in Prototype" taken from the Massey Lecture series of 1973 (part of The CBC Radio Ideas series). A delightful, short (100 pages) read that tells where we are now, and what should be done about it....

    (unfortunately Canadian edition from Anansi Canada is out of print while UK publisher now charges near astronomical price of ~$1 per page so used is probably best bet)
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      Nic Marks 100+

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      TED SpeakerTED Attendee
      Feb 17 2011: Oh Stafford Beer - now there is a thinker - a forgotten genius indeed. There is a new collection of his writings called "Think before you think" compliled by a friend of his david Whitaker. Very good introductions to a massively intelligent man - the collection includes the most bizarre christmas round robin letter you will ever read - god knows what his friends and relatives thought when they recieved it!
      It's available here (with a great picture of Beer looking like an old testament prophet) and I am sure from amazon too ...
      http://www.wavestonepress.co.uk/photo_934703.html

      • David Soul

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        Feb 18 2011: Almost chose it my self!

        I'd originally gone back and forth between Whitaker's compilation ""Think Before You Think" and Beer's own compilation "Platform for Change" before squirting sideways and going with Designing as the single book, of any genre from my book collection, that "resonates" and is the one "must read" as called for in Seth's request.

        The delightfully titled "Ten pints of Beer" which describes the rationale of each of his ten books on cybernetics - all of which are well worth reading - is available at www.kybernetik.ch/dwn/Ten_Pints_of_Beer.pdf

  • Bill Shackleton

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    Feb 26 2011: 'Time Enough for Love' by Robert Heinlein is another book I would add to my previous suggestion (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

    Born in the early 20th century the protagonist, Lazarus Long, has just managed to live long enough to benefit from the invention of the rejuvenation machine which extends his life (or, as his various stories reveal, lives) to the point where we find him 2000 years later full of the tales, experiences and wisdom of a man who has seen it all. Through its telling Heinlein explores human nature, 'future history', culture, adventure, and other things. Included among his various novellas of experiences are two 'intermissions' filled with the 'Sayings from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long'. Some of my favorites:

    Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it!

    Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

    Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.

    When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere

    A zygote is a gamete’s way of producing more gamete’s. This may be the purpose of the universe.

    People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy half a slug who must tighten his belt.

    ...and my personal favourite:

    A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects!

  • H. Gershen

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    Feb 24 2011: Limiting to works that may be out of print (but shouldn't be)...

    1) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
    2) Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel and Daisetz T. Suzuki
    3) Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo by Joe Adamson
    4) anything by Robert Benchley
    5) most anything by Spike Milligan, but especially old Goon Show scripts
    6) The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
    7) The Eudaemonic Pie by Thomas Bass
    8) Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
    9) The Starship and the Canoe by Kenneth Brower
    10) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
    11) Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo
    12) Stone Junction by Jim Dodge

    and...

    13) War Music by Christopher Logue (as well as the other works in the series)

    • Russell Mikel

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      Feb 25 2011: Thank you for reminding me of The Starship and the Canoe -- I always thought that Brower did a wonderful job of revealing the deeper similarities between Freeman Dyson and his son, George, who set out on a very different path from his father.

      • H. Gershen

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        Feb 25 2011: I read it during a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest and it was perfect for the location. However, George came off like he had Asperger's syndrome and Freeman came off like just didn't get it, any of it, yet I don't think either of those assessments is what truly is/was going on. There are some ways the narrator's role in the story resembles Bass' _The Eudaemonic Pie_, which is the story of how some of the original thinkers in Chaos Theory tried to break the bank playing roulette in Vegas. Very cool and a useful supplement to Gleick's _Chaos_.

  • James Ross

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    Feb 25 2011: The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten is a nice short read. I got the chance to speak with him for a while beforehand and I think he's more similar to me than anyone I've ever met, so it's probably a little better for me than others. Our books paralleled and I'd recommend speaking or reading about that perspective on life to everyone. :)

  • H. Gershen

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    Feb 25 2011: BTW, where is the consolidated list of books? Does it have a permanent home in the ether?

  • Craig Olson

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    Feb 25 2011: Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac - the original thinking on environmental philosophy and what it means to be human and live, interact, and change the environment.
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    Daniel Epstein 50+

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    TED AttendeeAssociate
    Feb 25 2011: The Power of Unreasonable People, by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan. I
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    Maksim Katsnelson

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    Feb 25 2011: I have read Happy Something, its a very interesting book, I also recommend it.

  • Ann Lorenzen

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    Feb 25 2011: The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay--an unforgettable and frequently overlooked work.. So good, in fact, that he bowed to countless requests and put out a Young Adult edition. Charles Portis' do-not-die-before-reading books, including True Grit, Gringos, Norwood, etc.--totally and unexpectedly delightful w/a remarkable sense of place, time, and dialect. Superb! Little Heathens--an autobiographical jewel written by a retired English teacher about growing up in Depression-era Iowa--laugh-out-loud and marvel at the challenges, the adventures, the sheer wonderment of being a Little Kid and being responsible for the cleaning of the pig's head prior to the making of good, old-fashioned head cheese. Recipes included.

  • Dennis Muzza

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    Feb 25 2011: Parting with Illusions, by Vladimir Posner. An inside look at Soviet Russia from the unique perspective of a half-Jewish Russian, half-French journalist who was raised in America. It's out of print but you can easily get it second hand.

  • James Robinson

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    Feb 24 2011: I realise this may be way out the box, but hey, this is TED and it's my first comment...

    I would challenge anyone who enjoys reading to get hold of 'The Incredible Book Eating Boy' by Oliver Jeffers - brilliantly illustrated, a simple children's book with an extraordinary underlying message.

    I'm heading off now to consider what tribe I want to lead.

    Peace.

    James
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    clay blasdel

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    Feb 25 2011: "PISSING IN THE SNOW AND OTHER OZARK FOLKTALES" is "As ripe,raunchy,and unprintable as honest country humor could possibly be...", said Publishers Weekly. Folklorist Vance Randolph compiled this book of short stories that were handed down generation to generation, most are traced from the 1920's through the 1950's. Not for the faint of heart or politically correct. Ribald stories are hilarious. There are 101 stories. A few titles are: What Madeline Done, That Boy Needs Pants, Tom Burdick's Pecker, The Duck Hunter's Woman. It's laugh out loud stuff when read abound a campfire. Illini Books, University of Illinois Press. 1976.

  • Paul Calcagno

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    Feb 25 2011: Carl Sagan's Broca's Brain. Discusses the organization and evolution of the human brain with emphases on the complexity and storage capacity of this marvelous organ.
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    Evangelina Cifliganec

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    Feb 25 2011: I don't mean to sound boastful here, but maybe you should try my book "Happy Something". It is about the meaning of life in a contemporary, philosophical and non religious manner. And truly a "novel" i.e. unlike anything, in terms of not only content but also structure. (Which can of course be good and bad, but to me originality was most important.) And I am not saying all this because it is my book, but it is my book because I was striving to write something most worthwhile, to me, a book about "everything".

    But if you don't maybe wait for the film version of it. :)

  • wc henwood

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    Feb 25 2011: So many great-sounding suggestions here - thank you!
    A couple of my own, off the top of my head: 'A Month in the Country' by J L Carr and 'A Door into Ocean' by Joan Slonczewski

  • Peter Fisher

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    Feb 21 2011: When you are bummed, "Trustee from the Toolroom" by Nevil Shute.

    • wc henwood

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      Feb 25 2011: ooh, I love Trustee - have you read 'On the Beach'?
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    Maria Popova 200+

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    TED AttendeeTEDx OrganizerAssociate
    Feb 24 2011: Published a year after I was born, This Book Needs No Title: A Budget of Living Paradoxes is as timeless as the come: http://j.mp/hDJLl5

    And as a huge linguo-obsessive, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention these 5 essential books for language lovers and word geeks: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/02/10/5-must-read-books-about-language/

  • Benjamin Atkinson

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    Feb 24 2011: Let me echo the previous recommendation of Ernest Becker's 'The Denial of Death'. And, let me add 'Escape from Evil', the book Becker completed at the close of his short life.

    Since you've explored Marcel Mauss you may find some familiar material in Chapter 2 of 'Escape from Evil'. But, being the polymath that he was, Becker generates further insights into the social constructs of gifts and giving. I'd be interested in reading your thoughts on some of the conclusions Becker draws:

    *Giving was first directed to eternity (God, karma, nature) to achieve cosmic heroism (and deny finitude).
    *Original human moeity resulted from a need to compete with and give to...an 'other'.
    *Giving in primitive societies (more clearly than modern societies) demonstrated to self (and others) one's right to life.

    Best regards,

    Ben
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    Frances Schagen 500+

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    TED AttendeeTEDx Organizer
    Feb 24 2011: The Dune series by Frank Herbert. I read it many times over. One of the themes is overcoming fear and building personal capacity to take on challenges. The main theme is about power and control and the tools used to get them. It made me see the world with new eyes and to see the really big over riding reasons for the way things are. And I'm still an optimist!

    The Earth's Children series by Jean M Auel - Clan of the Cavebear, Valley of the Horses, Mammoth Hunters, Plains of Passage and Shelters of Stone. Everything I 'know' about 30,000 years ago I learned here. This series taught me to identify with other people. We all have the same feelings, motivations, desires and fears. I read this every time I need a big dose of woman power.
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      Tobias Duncan 100+

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      Feb 24 2011: Just stumbled in here by accident to find someone taking about Dune! Sweet! I just started Chapterhouse this very day!
      A while back I started started a thread on the "website that dare not speak it's name" called: SCIENCE FICTION MADE ME A BETTER MAN.You would not believe how many people responded with comments like yours.

      Two more I more I would like to add

      Childhoods End by Aurthur C Clarke
      Brave New World by Aldus Huxley

  • Carolyn Ciccoritti

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    Feb 24 2011: Wow! Someone else who has read--and loved--One-Straw Revolution. It's been thirty years, but I remember being changed by it. Am currently re-reading Zen & Art of MM. The decades-long gap between readings has done nothing to diminish some of Pirsig's mind-blowing "maintainance". Fiction, however, is my true love. There's nothing like a good story beautifully told. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my faves.
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    Dave Lim TM 500+

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    TED AttendeeTEDx OrganizerAssociate
    Feb 24 2011: Well, here's 5 gems from TED 2011 speakers !

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/02/24/5-must-read-books-by-ted-2011-speakers/

  • Kurt Liska

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    Feb 24 2011: "A History of Knowledge" by Charles Van Doren (1992)

    Rather than seeing history through the prism of generals, wars and epic events, this wonderful book traces humankind's advance through our ideas, discoveries and leaps of imagination.

    A wonderful primer for young minds.
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    Mirik Smit

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    Feb 17 2011: Please read the engaging and beautiful novels by Kim Stanley Robinson on the progress of civilisation towards stability and peace by the quest for worship of nature and knowledge. Wish he would be given a chance to speak at TED and promote hs world view of science as the most self-critical, progressive, revisionist and peaceful 'religion' one could have:

    Kim Stanley Robinson:

    The Years of Rice and Salt
    Mars Trilogy
    Galileo's Dream
    (much more)

    Please give his amazing work a chance, you will not be dissapointed.

    Also the following writers have taught me a great deal about the world and being human:

    Peter Singer (Animal Liberation, How to Eat, The Life You can Save)
    Jared Diamons (Collapse, Guns, Germs and Stee, Guns, Germs and Steel, The Third Chimpanzee letc)
    Richard Dawkins (Unweaving the Rainbow, River out of Eden, The Selfish Gene)
    Sam Harris (The Moral Landscape)
    Jeremy Rifkin (Entropy, Empathy)
    Richard Wiseman (59 Seconds, Quirkology)
    Noam Chomsky (Rogue States, Hegemony of Survival)
    Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, Outliers, etc.)
    Daniel Dennett (Consciousness Explained, Freedom Evolves, etc)
    Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, etc)
    Barry Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice)
    Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational)
    Stephen J. Gould (Life's Grandeur)
    A.C. Grayling (What is Good, etc.)
    Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist)

    As for fiction:

    Kim Stanley Robinson (Years of Rice and Salt, Galileo's Dream, Mars Trilogy)
    Peter Watts (Blindsight)
    Richard Morgan (Altered Carbon, Thirteen/Black Man)
    Paulo Bacigalupi (Windup Girl)
    Anthony Huso (The Last Page)
    Dan Simmons (Hyperion)

    I mostly enjoy science-fiction. But that is literature (if you read the right kind) that says the most about the world, our past and our future,if you ask me. It discovers humanity or how to attain it.

    • David Rosenberg

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      Feb 17 2011: Robinson's Mars trilogy stands as some of the best science fiction I've ever read. Delving into extremely complex scientific methods and questions surrounding the terraforming of Mars, mega projects such as a space elevator, and genetic engineering. All of these scientific themes are played out with the social consequences of each affecting the characters and the world at large. Questions of politics, romance , and philosophy abound. I found it very easy to imagine that this would be a plausible window to our future, and how actual settlement on Mars might unfold. All of this unfolds with a compelling story that rolls forward throughout the trilogy. A great read, which I return to again and again through the years.
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        Mirik Smit

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        Feb 19 2011: Perfect summary, sir. Feel the same, it has such a 'It could darn well happen exactly like this'-feeling to it. Plausability level infinite.

    • keith abramson

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      Feb 17 2011: Mirik:

      Great calls on your fiction list.

      Given your taste, if you haven't read the following, you should definitely check them out:

      China Mieville: Perdido St. Station (and all of his other works!)

      Charles Stross: Again, everything, but definitely check out Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise to start, then Glasshouse.

      Peter F. Hamilton: the Night's Dawn Trilogy
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        Mirik Smit

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        Feb 19 2011: Thanks sir, Mieville is on my to read list. So many good sci-fi writers, hard to know where to start and what is the best...

    • Christopher Galtenberg

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      Feb 17 2011: Great call with KSR. The Memory of Whiteness may be his best, though out of print. Red Mars is a grand place to start.

      And as good as that is, yes, Dan Simmons' Hyperion is even better.
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        Louise Kidney

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        Feb 17 2011: China Melville rocks. City in the City is magic with all its 'unseeing' but he's also the nicest man you'll ever meet. Which is important to me, but suspect will be of no importance to everyone else ;O)
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        Mirik Smit

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        Feb 20 2011: Thank you sir, I have The Memory of Whiteness, but did not read that yet (so much to read, so little time!) Also look forward to his "Sience in the Capital" trilogy.

        And to Louise; you just fancy him, admit it! :-) Noone will blame you, he IS quite the erudite, intelligent and handsome manly man that does write brilliant books (from what I heard)!

        • Christopher Galtenberg

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          Feb 22 2011: I would definitely recommend prioritizing Memory of Whiteness above the Science trilogy. I wish I could go back and read that anew.

          Enjoy!

    • Joseph Bray

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      Feb 19 2011: Certainly these are the seminal works and required reading for all who belong to the Church of Scientific Materialism. As a religion however, it is weak, angry and reactionary. If you have to belong to a club and don't like thinking for yourself, I can think of more positive religions. But of course if you want tenure or need to belong to the intellectual establishment then this is the stuff for you.
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        Mirik Smit

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        Feb 20 2011: Please read your own reply while pondering the question of who here, is actually expressing any form of anger. :-)

        I regret to bring offence, but I fail to see how I have addressed the issues you deal with or caused you to feel to need to express your cynicism. As you see I use 'religion' rather broadly as a form of world view, not in the dogmatic sense we all know it as today.

        To me it has been tremendously positive, falling from one into the other amazing discovery via science and the enjoying the beauty and nifty workings of nature. It has not been a cause for anger to witness how a bumblebee flies, or to explore the almost artistic complexity of the mind boggling Large Hadron Collider.

        Please answer me how the worship of knowledge and nature represents an 'angry and reactionary' world view, I would be interested to see your point of view. Much thanks, next time with some more concise arguments and less angry randomness, I would beg of you, sir!

        It's possible other people would find more traction for discussion in your words when you actually pretend they can't read your mind and just put forth the arguments you wish to present and don't just put their contribution down without an apparent valid (or even relevant) basis.

        Also, please reccomend us a book (after all, what this is about).

    • Alex Gilbert

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      Feb 24 2011: Mirik, a fantastic humanist reading selection. Guns, Germs & Steel one of the all-time best. I'd also suggest Bryson's Short History, Jacoby's Age of American Unreason, Taverne's March of Unreason and prety much anything by Hitchens or Stenger

  • damiano parolin

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    Feb 24 2011: The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming, Masanobu Fukuoka. Hope you read it, it will open your heart and re-connect you to the universe.

  • damiano parolin

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    Feb 24 2011: Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change by David Holmgren. “Scenario planning,” Holmgren explains, “allows us to use stories about the future as a reference point for imagining how particular strategies and structures might thrive, fail, or be transformed.” David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator with Bill Mollison of the permaculture concept following the publication of Permaculture One in 1978.
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    Martin Funes

    • +2
    Feb 17 2011: If you haven't read anything by Borges yet, that'd be an overlooked Author.
    His poems are great, his conferences and talks could easily be TEDs, his essays and short stories more often than not are mind blowing.

    • L. Max Taylor

      • +1
      Feb 21 2011: Borges' short stories are exquisite. So magical, so dense with meaning, one dare not skip a word. The collection titled Labyrinths is extraordinary. Some have argued that his fantastical concepts, such as the encyclopedia that continually changed itself, was actualized in the form of wikipedia, and the internet generally. See "Borges and the Foreseeable Future," www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/06cohenintro.html.

    • Christopher Galtenberg

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      Feb 22 2011: "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is the first I'd recommend. The title actually says it all.

      • L. Max Taylor

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        Feb 22 2011: "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is part of the Labyrinths collection.
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      Sebastian Betti 200+

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      HostTED AttendeeTED TranslatorAssociateLanguage Coordinator
      Feb 23 2011: I totally agree with you guys. I like all his works but I'd recommend "Death and the Compass" and since he uses lot of underlying connections to this other short story I'd also recommend "The Garden of Forking Paths".

  • Ron Beland

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    Feb 23 2011: Another gem is "Go with Me" by Castle Freeman Jr. It is a damsel in distress story,current Vt style with wonderful greeek chorus style commentary chapters by local yokels. Not a word wasted and perfectly constructed..
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    scott berry

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    Feb 23 2011: I cannot too strongly recommend nearly anything by Par Lagerkvist (Swedish, 1951 Nobel Prize) - but especially "the Dwarf" - ISBN 0-374-52135-2; a once-removed take on Cesare Borgia as told through his court homunculus - maybe.

    This brief book is so spectacularly good you will find yourself reading and re-reading favorite moments with a barely-suppressible joy constantly in the 19-straight hours I assure you you will spend non-stop powering through it. It is a very dark book, and it will go straight to the top eschelons of your list of favorites.
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    Luci McKean 500+

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    TED AttendeeTEDx OrganizerAssociate
    Feb 23 2011: I'm digging Gever Tulley's new TEDBook -- Beware Dangerism! Smart analyses, easy to understand, quick read ... kinda reminds me of your books in those ways, Seth!
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    Yara Shaban 50+

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    TED FellowAssociate
    Feb 23 2011: -For Bread Alone: Mohamed Choukri: http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Alone-Autobiography-OUT-PRINT/dp/0863561381

    -The Yacoubian Building: http://www.amazon.com/Yacoubian-Building-Alaa-Al-Aswany/dp/0060878134/ref=pd_sim_b_2
    is a timely book to read that gives you a glimpse of the modern Egyptian society.

    -Men in the Sun is a must read: http://www.amazon.com/Men-Sun-Other-Palestinian-Stories/dp/0894108573/ref=pd_sim_b_2
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