Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

Hah, no, seeing the username is a factor in pushing me to make the comment. I feel as though many books tend to be far less wide ranging, because they take up a smaller view; Piketty's book (going from what I'm seeing on the descriptions, I haven't read it yet) seems to be limited in scope, and less polemical. But those aren't matters of its relevance. So I might venture to say that if we will see a book as consequential as Marx's, its author will see with revolutionary (forgive the pun) clarity right to the most abstract core of their object. In the modern era, there are only three widely regarded as having done so with force: Marx, Nietzche and Freud. I'm still waiting to see what the post-modern era brings out. Who will do to economics today what Marx did to political economy and sociology in the 19th century?

In my experience, the best way of finding good books has been:

1) Find authors and intellectual subcultures that you are interested in, and follow what they are doing.

2) Read intelligent long-form reviews of books. Most good intellectual magazines and journals have a review section.

3) Read whatever you can on Amazon preview and Google Books before buying a book.

Paul Fussell's book, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System is one of my favorite non-fiction books. I consider myself lucky to have discovered a copy at a used book store 20+ years ago. Unfortunately, it only has a 3.95 on Goodreads, so I guess it's going in the trash.

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison only has a 3.63 and I don't think she's really an "expert" in any of the specific topics she writes about. It's brilliant ...but maybe I can still return it?

This system is a great way to hyper-optimize for narrow-mindedness.

I am an author of several nonfiction (pop-sci) books. I am also a former journalist.

I readily acknowledge that I am not an expert in the fields I write about.

That is why the bulk of my work is finding out who the experts are and presenting their work in an accessible way. (Granted, once you've been writing about a certain area for long enough, you do tend to become educated about it.)

One of the things that makes me feel good about what I do is that I am able to expose readers to intriguing information they might otherwise never encounter, unless they've got subscriptions to a bunch of academic journals in fields of study outside of their own.

Keep in mind, it's not a given that people who are the most well-respected experts in their field are also talented writers. People like Douglas Hofstadter certainly are both, but not every expert is like him. And if you follow Rule #1 religiously, it sounds as if you're limiting yourself to experts who are both. In the process, you're likely missing out on a lot of cool information, just because you are only willing to read first-hand accounts.

I would argue that goodreads is not a particularly good way to determine whether a non-fiction book is worth reading. goodreads reviewers are just regular people who evaluate books based on how much they enjoyed them, not how accurate of useful the books are.

If I'm looking for a book I want to learn from, I scout recommendations from journals, magazines, blogs, respected radio programs/podcasts. End of year "best of" lists are also a good source of ideas. Then I read some in-depth reviews of books that strike my fancy by reviewers who have reason to know what they're talking about. Many of these have 4+ star ratings in goodreads, some don't.

Also, a blanket rejection of books by journalists or other non-experts is going to lead you to miss some really good books. That rule immediately called to mind Tracy Kidder. So, "The Soul of a New Machine" is off limits. Really? No thanks. I can think of many others.