Five Books: The best books on everything
fivebooks.com
Five Books: The best books on everything
1–10 of 91 posts
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#2I've been looking for something like this, hopefully other users can weigh in if the curation is any good.
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#3I've been looking for something like this, hopefully other users can weigh in if the curation is any good.
Based on my limited perusal of areas I have some familiarity with, I'd say they're pretty good.
Could I bicker? Yes. But it would be in "these aren't quite the top five but they're in my top ten" type as opposed to "why are you recommending Mein Kampf as a cookbook".
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#4I've been looking for something like this, hopefully other users can weigh in if the curation is any good.
I think that usually the best books about a topic are textbooks, and by the look of it this site doesn't suggest many
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#5The Economist does something similar with their Economist Reads column. Their topics are more esoteric though. The best books to understand
- The Scottish Independence Movement - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/05/02/wha...
- Poker - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha...
- Florida - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha...
- Investing - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/26/fiv...
- Books you’re forbidden from reading - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/02/24/sev...
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#6I find this to be simplistic pop intelectual nonsense. This is not how to learn anything.
It's way more meaningful to understand and pursue your own actual interests than to humble brag by ticking the "correct" readings.
Not to mention that talking about the best anything is basically meaningless, except for very tightly constrained achievements (e.g. we can talk about the best sprinter, but who's the best philosopher? or the best mathematician?)
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#7I would love to see a small, maybe opinionated list of science books, each, in one volume, giving a full overview of the field in an approachable way, like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Life
but of course state-of-the-art.
It would be a nice collection and a chance to at least get a general overview over all of science, and discover just how patchy my knowledge really is :)
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#8I find this to be simplistic pop intelectual nonsense. This is not how to learn anything. It's way more meaningful to understand and pursue your own actual interests than to humble brag by ticking the "correct" readings. Not to mention that talking about the best anything is basically meaningless, except for very tightly constrained achievements (e.g. we can talk about the best sprinter, but who's the best philosophe…
[deleted]
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#9I've been looking for something like this, hopefully other users can weigh in if the curation is any good.
Based on my limited perusal of areas I have some familiarity with, I'd say they're pretty good. Could I bicker? Yes. But it would be in "these aren't quite the top five but they're in my top ten" type as opposed to "why are you recommending Mein Kampf as a cookbook".
Is recommending "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins as a "best book on Quantum Theory" good enough for your taste?
Anyway, any list of "The best books on X, recommended by Some Noname" almost by definition is not going to be very reliable, so that's all I can say. Just another bullshit website to earn commission via Amazon referral links by recommending random bullshit to innocent victims. I recon it might have been more useful if it was entirely generated by ChatGPT.
Re: Five Books: The best books on everything
#10I find this to be simplistic pop intelectual nonsense. This is not how to learn anything. It's way more meaningful to understand and pursue your own actual interests than to humble brag by ticking the "correct" readings. Not to mention that talking about the best anything is basically meaningless, except for very tightly constrained achievements (e.g. we can talk about the best sprinter, but who's the best philosophe…
I’m having a hard time parsing your complaint.
> This is not how to learn anything.
You don’t learn anything by reading books? So if you have an interest in astronomy you don’t learn by reading books on astronomy? How do you learn, then? Must one go study to become an astronomer as the first step? Won’t you have to read a book on it at some point?
> It's way more meaningful to understand and pursue your own actual interests
What does this mean in practice, and how does it invalidate reading? Can’t you understand and pursue an interest in philosophy by reading philosophy books?
> than to humble brag by ticking the "correct" readings.
Who’s talking about humble bragging? Wether you brag or not it’s up to you, I don’t see anything on the website encouraging you to do so.
> Not to mention that talking about the best anything is basically meaningless, except for very tightly constrained achievements
The website is very upfront about how it works:
> We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.
Seems like a good way to begin exploring. If you’re interested in a subject the website points you to someone they consider to be knowledgeable of the field, that person has recommendations to get your started, and they explain why they picked each one.
Maybe I missed something about the reason you oppose the website, but on the face of it I don’t see what’s so wrong as to justify such vehement disapproval.