I prefer books that are highly rated on Amazon.com. I generally don't care how long they are. I mainly ask myself, Am I the right audience for this book? If

I prefer books that are highly rated on Amazon.com. I generally don't care how long they are. I mainly ask myself, Am I the right audience for this book? If I am not the right audience, can I gain a new perspective by reading this book? Who is recommending I read this book? Am I buying this book just because I lack expertise in an area? If so, why am I not asking an expert what book to read and what to look for in a good book? See, for example, Victor A. Wagner Jr's guide to reading C++ books: http://www.rudbek.com/books.html http://www.rudbek.com/books.html On IRC chat, Victor usually repeats the advice in Peter Norvig's essay Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years If I am reading Lambda the Ultimate, and somebody with seniority on that site (e.g. Allan McInnes) says read Franklyn Turbak's book on programming languages, then I generally follow that advice. Smart people tend not to read nor recommend crap.