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Ask HN: How do you choose your technical books?
Hi,
For any given language/framework/concept there are several technical books available.
How do you choose your technical books?
1.I just read amazon reviews.
2.Go by friends recommendation.
3.Check out what others have said on Hacker News, stackoverflow or a relevant subreddit
4.I read the book reviews in blogs.
5.I get the book recommended on the technology's site or the book recommended by a tutorial I used.
6.I don't think. I just get the first one I see.
7.I get multiple books and use-them-all/choose-the-one-i-like.
Do you search online about the book you are going to purchase?
Would you like a site that collates all the relevant recommendations in one place?
- arh68 12y agoSome books I choose, some books I see mentioned (like here on hn). To find books on a fresh topic, I google site:stackoverflow.com books TOPIC to find an already-curated list or two (ex: [1]). I find a few of those books on amazon, inspect the reviews. Positive reviews often all sound the same, so negative reviews are usually more worthwhile. I try to ignore the reviews (and the books) from people who've never read another book in the genre. If the book is on Safari, I skim the ToC and jump right to the middle to see what they're building, how they're building it. I may even look for a pdf to skim (but not read, I don't like to keep/read e-books, I only buy paper). If the book is on Amazon for $0.01 (+ $3.99 shipping), I just buy it. If I still want the book, I check CamelCamelCamel for the 'proper' price to buy it at, and I set an alert. For example, I recently waited for Koza's Genetic Programming to hit $15, then I purchased. [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1017017/what-is-the-best-way-to-learn-erlang http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1017017/what-is-the-best-...
- sharmi 12y agothank you very much, Arh68, for the detailed answer. If a site provides a summary of reviews for each book from different sources like stackoverflow and reddit, similar to rotten tomatoes does for movies, would that save you time? Will that interest you