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Five Books: The best books on everything

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Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#31

Post by zztop44 »

nathansherburn wrote: post #28
latexr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I’m genuinely interested, what is the false promise of knowledge offered by this site?

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#32

Post by abecedarius »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #7

I 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 :)

Some of the Foo: A Very Short Introduction books are worth reading. Not on average to me, though I'm picky.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#33

Post by deevus »

I was recently recommended the sci-fi space opera "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge. That was an absolute blast to read. If you're into computer science, you'll really dig it.

There is a summary with no spoilers at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5jTNUSIR18

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#34

Post by latexr »

nathansherburn wrote: post #28
latexr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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

I took it as being about this website or something the website represents. I do hope no one is against reading in general.

> I took it to mean that the best way to learn (…) start by googling a specific aspect

People learn different subjects in different ways. Perhaps googling fits some people and some subjects, but if you don’t know anything about a field you don’t know which questions it makes sense to search for or which websites to trust.

> but I think there's also a false promise of knowledge offered by sites like this.

I don’t get that at all from this particular website. They’re quite open that they’re presenting “the best books as recommended by X”. The person doing the recommendation is an integral part, they are interviews.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#36

Post by RheingoldRiver »

zztop44 wrote: post #31
nathansherburn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

I’m genuinely interested, what is the false promise of knowledge offered by this site?

Not OOP but - they sell you pop science (or economics or what have you) and make you think that after reading 1 book you'll be an expert in that field.

Most people haven't studied any single field deeply, and they don't know how many hours of commitment it takes, how much practice, how much failure, how many projects & validated hypotheses it takes to actually understand something.

Reading a book written for non-experts is barely going to give you a sense of what you don't know, nothing more.

They're implying, "read this and you'll become an expert." Again try to read this through the eyes of someone who hasn't become an expert at anything. That's the target audience. Anyone who has, would never read the most popular book on a subject to learn from it, They'd read the introductory books meant for people who are planning to go on to study that subject.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#37

Post by Nihilartikel »

deevus wrote: post #33

I was recently recommended the sci-fi space opera "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge. That was an absolute blast to read. If you're into computer science, you'll really dig it. There is a summary with no spoilers at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5jTNUSIR18

I was recommended the not-really-a-prequel, 'A deepness in the sky' and quite enjoyed that too!

Very different plot, with a few connecting elements to the former, but still cracking good sci Fi.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#38

Post by deevus »

Nihilartikel wrote: post #37
deevus wrote: post #33

I was recently recommended the sci-fi space opera "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge. That was an absolute blast to read. If you're into computer science, you'll really dig it. There is a summary with no spoilers at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5jTNUSIR18

I was recommended the not-really-a-prequel, 'A deepness in the sky' and quite enjoyed that too! Very different plot, with a few connecting elements to the former, but still cracking good sci Fi.

I'm reading through "Deepness" at the moment. I agree it is also very cool!

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#39

Post by latexr »

RheingoldRiver wrote: post #36
zztop44 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m genuinely interested, what is the false promise of knowledge offered by this site?

Not OOP but - they sell you pop science (or economics or what have you) and make you think that after reading 1 book you'll be an expert in that field. Most people haven't studied any single field deeply, and they don't know how many hours of commitment it takes, how much practice, how much failure, how many projects & validated hypotheses it takes to actually understand something. Reading a book written for non-expe…

> they sell you pop science (or economics or what have you) and make you think that after reading 1 book you'll be an expert in that field.

No, they do not. I picked one interview at random and one from the homepage:

The interview about food books¹ has one solely about cheese which is praised for the photographs. On three of them the story of the people is the focus.

The interview on perfume² has two fiction books.

> They're implying, "read this and you'll become an expert."

This is demonstrably not the case. These are books on specific subjects that certain people familiar with the fields find interesting and worthy of your time. No one is selling you the idea that you’ll become an expert if you read them. You might be assuming they are, but the content tells a different story.

¹ https://fivebooks.com/best-books/food-books-2023-clare-finne...

² https://fivebooks.com/best-books/denise-hamilton-perfume/

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