Example: Quora's list of underrated books. Do they qualify?

Unlike Moneyball, there is no math here beyond the simple heuristic that he's listing books that had a high ratio of (personal positive impact)/(public attention).

How to Win Friends and Influence People is an important book, but most people have already heard of it. I'd nominate "The Tao of Pooh" as a book that was terribly important to my own self-development, but you almost never see or hear about it on the blogosphere/twitterverse.

I wonder why the blogosphere doesn't talk about "The Tao of Pooh".

I will try to think of others. Possibly _Fierce Conversations_ by Susan Scott.

Linkified:

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Pooh-Benjamin-Hoff/dp/0140067477

http://www.amazon.com/Fierce-Conversations-Achieving-Success-Conversation/dp/0425193373

FC has been on my radar for a while now, but haven't gotten to it yet...

You definitely should. That book is useful at work AND in personal life.

It makes you more aware of all the conversations you have.

On the underrated: I think it's in categories where there is a clear winner, but another one provides at least as much value if not more, but for some reason it's less accessible, less known, etc. Sort of Four Steps to epiphany as compared to Lean Startup. I find Four steps the better, more useful book. Also uglier, harder to read and more narrow but for pure value, it's better money, IMO.

On the list of funny little books no one has heard of Rapid Problem Solving with Post-it notes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1555611427?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=1555611427&linkCode=shr&tag=eleganthack

Bizarrely useful, never mentioned.

I LOVE The Inner Game of Stress and recommend it all the time to people. You don't have to extrapolate like you do with Inner Game of Tennis.

Thanks for recommending Rapid Problem Solving with Post-Its and Inner Game of Stress.

And here's a link to a Fierce Conversations.