MANIFESTO · BEST·BOOKS
Why this exists
There are far more great books than any one person can read in a lifetime. That makes the opportunity cost of reading second-rate writing very high. Every bad book crowds out a better one. This site is for finding the best books.
“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.” — Schopenhauer
How to find the best books
My answer is simple: look at what the most interesting people read.
This site collects books publicly endorsed by some of the best technologists, scientists, and investors. In total, it includes 2,821 books.
But 2,821 books is still too many. The next question becomes: if you only have time to read ten, which ten should they be?
That is where the second part comes in: overlap. We look at how many of these people have endorsed each book, then rank the books accordingly.
Based on that ranking, here are the top five:
You can also explore the top books by genre, including Popular Science, Technology, and Sci-Fi.
For many of the most-endorsed books, there are also AI-generated book companions, each designed to be read in about 30 minutes. For example, the companions for Zero to One, The Sovereign Individual, and The Selfish Gene.
The goal of this site is to make book discovery more explicit: who recommends what, where the overlap is, and which books keep showing up.
Baris Ozmen