Re: Mind-expanding reading list LO3467

Jim Michmerhuizen (jamzen@world.std.com)
Fri, 27 Oct 1995 20:15:07 +0059 (EDT)

Replying to LO3432 --

OK, here's a couple of mine -

John Crowley: "Little, Big"
A magnificent fantasy story. It changed my life by raising all sorts
of questions I couldn't answer and hadn't read in any philosophy
books either.

Hubert Dreyfus: "What Computers (Still) Can't Do"
Some books change me, and some confirm me. This one confirmed that
at least one other person in the world has had the same difficulties
about AI as I've had. And that kind of confirmation can change a
person... .

Saul Kripke: "Naming and Necessity"
This would be fairly impenetrable to anyone without strong training
in 20th-century philosophy. But it _did_ change my daily viewpoint
on things.

Tim Lister and Tom DeMarco: "PeopleWare"
The best book that has been written on software management (thanks,
Rachel Silber, for reminding me).

Fred Brooks: "The Mythical Man-Month"
Well-known in software engineering groups, this book has a _lot_,
by extension, to contribute to L.O. discussion. A lot.

Ursula LeGuin: "A Wizard of Earthsea"
"The Tombs of Atuan"
"The Farhest Shore"
There are others, equally inciteful. This trilogy of fantasies
is magnificent story-telling, superb craftsmanship, and an
unexpectedly well thought-out account of names, appearances, and
reality.

I like cross-fertilizing books. Books addressed to one area of human
experience and action, that I can apply to some other area. Plato's
dialogues are good drama; LeGuin's fantasy stories are good philosophy;
Fred Brooks' book bears directly on systems thinking topics; Kripke's
book, for all its technical sophistication as a work of academic
philosophy, has the power to transform. Speaking of which, I wouldn't be
here if it weren't for Senge's book: "The Fifth Discipline."

--
Regards
     Jim Michmerhuizen    jamzen@world.std.com
     web residence at     http://world.std.com/~jamzen/
...........................................................................
. . . . There are far *fewer* things in heaven and earth, Horatio,  . . . .
 . . . . .       than are dreamt of in your philosophy...        . . | _ .