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Five Books: The best books on everything

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Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#21

Post by autarch »

activitypea wrote: post #2

I've been looking for something like this, hopefully other users can weigh in if the curation is any good.

I looked through the sci-fi and fantasy sections and there were some odd choices. For example, Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation was recommended as a "climate change novel" book. It's hard for me to see how this makes any sense.

Other weird suggestions:

* Ender's Game under Best Apocalyptic Fiction * Parable of the Talents under Best Sci Fi Books on Space Settlement - this is real stretch since the book takes place entirely on Earth, though it does feature a religion that focuses on spreading humanity to other planets.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#26

Post by ofalkaed »

When ever I am getting into a new topic I try to start with OUP's Very Short Introduction series [0]. They generally do not give good understanding but they orient you in the field and provide extensive bibliographies along with the knowledge required to navigate that bibliography and select the sources which will give you the information you desire instead of what someone else thinks you want. Failing that I just go down to the library and talk to the librarian.

0: https://global.oup.com/academic/content/series/v/very-short-...

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#28

Post by nathansherburn »

latexr wrote: post #10
leto_ii wrote: post #6

I 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 in…

> Maybe I missed something about the reason you oppose the website...

It sounds like you took the primary criticism in the parent comment to be about reading in general.

I took it to mean that the best way to learn say economics is not to read one of "the top 5 recommended books on economics" but rather start by googling a specific aspect or question about economics that interests you and then following the thread.

Granted, reading one of the top 5 books may be a great entry point for many people but I think there's also a false promise of knowledge offered by sites like this.

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