djcb comments on August 2012 Media Thread - Less Wrong

3 Post author: RobertLumley 01 August 2012 06:29PM

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Comment author: djcb 02 August 2012 09:48:35AM 1 point [-]

I love reading and have enjoyed some of the recommendations I found on LW; however, I'm sure the collective knowledge of interesting books in the LW-community is much bigger than the few book seen in the Media Thread or in the wiki. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be a place to find the, say, top-5 most higly rated books in some subject, or the top-5 of must-read books of the last 12 months.

If someone knows how we could start something like this on LW, your advice would be highly appreciated!

Comment author: iDante 03 August 2012 04:45:09AM *  1 point [-]

I'm also interested. There's a list compiled by Lukeprog et al. about the best textbooks in every subject, but that's just textbooks.

Perhaps opening a thread asking peeps to post a few books would be useful? I'd ask for one or two books for each of...

  • Favorite

  • Most influential (towards your life, your thinking, idk)

  • Most fun

  • Best outside of a genre that you normally read

  • and others. maybe.

Comment author: djcb 03 August 2012 04:31:11PM 0 points [-]

I think the textbook-list was a nice idea, but in the ended didn't really work that well, since too few people were involved, and, as you say, it's only textbooks -- not my normal digest of books.

So as my own little contribution, I'll try to add a few books every time the Media Thread comes up; hopefully more people will do that. Let's fight against Sturgeon's Law!

Comment author: maia 02 August 2012 03:52:42PM 1 point [-]

For specific subjects, try searching the site for "The Best Books in Every Subject" - a list of academic books highly rated by LWers.

Comment author: dbaupp 03 August 2012 06:30:52AM 0 points [-]