From the review: "The Story About Ping has earned a place on my bookshelf, right between Stevens' Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante's seminal work on MS Windows, Inferno. Who can read that passage on the Windows API ("Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by fixing on its depths my sight -- Nothing whatever I discerned therein."), without shaking their head with deep understanding. But I digress."

> Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix's most venerable networking utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and network infrastructure were finalized.

The fact that since January 2000 nearly 16k people "found this helpful" opened my eyes to how Amazon book reviews really do have the potential to be "classic".

The OP link is blocked for me (work VPN) but seeing the title immediately made me think of "Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?" https://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Why-There-Server-House/dp/16053...

I was thinking more the Little LISPer/Smalltalker.