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[kytuzian]

I hate sort of pile on to you like this, but I totally agree. I would even go so far as to say that no meaningful part of human knowledge is contained in works of literature.

[acetech09]

Leave it to B12 to compile a list containing 31 books on Philosophy, and not a single book on applied engineering and construction. :p

This list needs the Pocket Ref.

[freeformschooler]

Leave it to B12 to compile a list containing 31 books on Philosophy, and not a single book on applied engineering and construction. :p

This list needs the Pocket Ref.

This being the Liberal Crime Fortress Forums, where most people post stuff like this -

I would even go so far as to say that no meaningful part of human knowledge is contained in works of literature.

- I was surprised to find any philosophy or literature on OP's list. He/she is clearly an outlier in tastes around here.

(This is not a jab at you, kytuzian - I am only saying you are likely representative of the popular bay12 opinion on this matter.)

[mainiac]

Keep Sowell, the General Theory and maybe the Intelligent Investor.  Ditch Das Kapital, Wealth of Nations and Security Analysis.  Burn Capitalism and Freedom and spit on the ashes.  Add in the latest edition of Economics by Samuelson.

The three to ditch are really only interesting in a historical context to understand the evolution of the field.  Without knowledge of the field you are more likely to mislead then illuminate.  Capitalism and Freedom is shit.  It lurches from untruths to things the author isn't qualified to give an expert opinion on.  If you want to include unqualified writings on political economy then Mein Kampf is at least interesting.  The Intelligent Investor is a pretty good general book on how markets work in action.  Sowell and the General Theory are handy but largely superceded at this point so maybe there is room for improvement.  Samuelson is of historical interest as well as still being pretty up to date.

There should also be some volume or other on the history of industrialization.  It is the most significant shift in human history since agriculture.  Nothing with a broad enough overview is springing to my mind however.

[birdy51]

;.; Needs more music. While it is easy to point at music and say, "Tonality", I would argue that you would miss out on a lot of the other important factors about it. Each culture that has existed on this earth has done Music slightly different, with varying degrees of reflection and insight into their own culture.

Still a nice list. I would not call this a definitive list, and I should wonder if anyone can glean all the sum of human knowledge from just 150 books these days. But actually attempting to do so wins brownie points with me either way. I might have to check out a few of the books on the list!

[Arx]

I agree with birdy about the music. And, notably, a book of musical analysis cannot hope to replace the artistic merit of the works themselves. Also I doubt I'll be able to learn to build, say, a piano or harpsichord from that book.

Your maths section also looks somewhat thin (I'm not familiar with all of those, but are they going to get into, say, category theory?), although admittedly a proper representation of current mathematics would require most of the available slots.

The King James is going to make little to no sense in parts unless the reader also has a dictionary including obsolete and obscure English terms in it. I'd suggest a more recent translation with more emphasis on unambiguity (English is very vague compared to Greek) and clearer language to the modern reader - my favourite is the NIV. [/KJV bashing]

The technology section is very barren. There are concepts that are only teachable theoretically - quantum computing comes to mind - that aren't represented. And what about things like transistors and all of that? Also, there's nothing about agriculture - animal husbandry, crop rotation, and so on are fairly abstract and I'm pretty sure you could learn them from a book. Heck, I know a fair bit about them, so clearly it's possible (I'm not a farmer). The same goes for pottery, bricklaying, and so on. Kiln designs and temperatures don't have to be judged by feel, although I'm sure it helps; those must be in a book somewhere.

The mythology is missing anything African, and I've seen books on African mythology, in English.

The literature section is short on African and Eastern authors. The literature needs to showcase all the styles, if it's conveying knowledge, not just the style we know as 'classical literature'.

Many crafts can have the basics taught by books - like plumbing. I learned how a flush toilet works from a book, by way of example.


As a summary of Western literary, social, and scientific knowledge it's pretty good. It's just, in my opinion, very short on the practicalities and Africana.

[Sheb]

I'm also not sure why you included books to learn French and German.

[sjm9876]

When you have 50 books on literature, and only 15 in science I think it's fairly safe to say it isn't a good list for all human knowledge.

It might be better titled as a list representing human culture - though that isn't to comment on exactly what culture.

[bahihs]

I'm also not sure why you included books to learn French and German.

Some of the other books are in French and German, and those particular books are excellent for learning into read in the those languages (and sadly only exist for those two languages).

So far the only concrete advice I've received is from retropunch (regarding the Four Great Books) and mainiac (Regarding the economics section (did not know Capitalism and Freedom was that bad btw, thanks for the heads-up - is Sowell still relevant? I am reading him now, I'd like to know if it is objective. Also, why remove Security Analysis? Redundant, bad or can be better?), everyone else is being too broad in their advice. Suggest actual books (by name!), whether which ones to take out or which ones to add in.

Also I'd like to mention that the books need to be readable. A textbook is not readable, in the same sense that an dictionary is not readable. Some of the books I've chosen are textbooks however, but only for those subjects where no suitable alternative was found, and only those textbooks which are so accessible as to be considered readable. Find me textbooks on your topics like that, and I will make room. Otherwise a textbook is only a reference and useless (remember the end-goal is to actually read these books, not have them sit in a shelf for occasional browsing).

@Arx I also have a bias toward mathematics, which is why I tried my best to limit myself (and I went above and beyond) in that section. However the book "What is Mathematics" contains pretty much an overview of most mathematical subjects, including IIRC category theory. The rest of the books take care of everything else. I'm surprised you haven't heard of Hardy's book however, it is quite famous. As for Axeler, I really recommend him, although they are technically textbooks, it's like reading a novel. His writing is very lucid and his approach to the subjects, unique. 

[freeformschooler]

Building off what Arx said, there's a couple Big Books of How to Do Stuff that are worth consideration if only for the amount of things they teach you to do.

The Big Book of Country Know-how: useful reference on how to build and plant just about anything you'd use in the old country. It even shows you how to build a chair!
When There Is No Doctor: You won't become a brain surgeon from reading this, but it's got tons of useful, life-saving information and, importantly, diagrams and drawings.

If there were a combined version of all the National Audubon Society Field Guides, that would be worth including, but it seems none exists.

[Arx]

So far the only concrete advice I've received is from retropunch (regarding the Four Great Books) and mainiac (Regarding the economics section (did not know Capitalism and Freedom was that bad btw, thanks for the heads-up - is Sowell still relevant? I am reading him now, I'd like to know if it is objective. Also, why remove Security Analysis? Redundant, bad or can be better?), everyone else is being too broad in their advice. Suggest actual books (by name!), whether which ones to take out or which ones to add in.

I'd suggest a more recent translation with more emphasis on unambiguity (English is very vague compared to Greek) and clearer language to the modern reader - my favourite is the NIV.

As for the rest, sure. I'm not sure which to replace, but Ways of Dying captures a lot of the Bantu style and modern culture, and Things Fall Apart makes heavy use of Igbo oral culture, avoiding the issue you mentioned with the oral traditions.

African Mythology or African Myths of Origin would provide an overview of the many African mythologies.

Looking over the list again, The Psychology Book provides an overview of psychology, currently completely unrepresented.

And I agree with pretty much everyone else that literature is highly over-represented on your list. However, if you must have so much, consider adding something that isn't classic literature - Laura or A Study in Scarlet or some other classic of crime fiction, and The Lord of the Rings (or some other archetypal fantasy novel) as a massively influential modernish work of fantasy. The literature section would almost definitely be improved by a literature analysis book, even if you don't think it's as good as all the books currently present. The Seven Basic Plots would be a start.

Master Basic DIY: Teach Yourself probably doesn't go into quite as much detail as acetech would like, but it covers most simple handyman-type activities - plumbing, wiring, painting, basic construction, and so on.

A Short History of Nearly Everything seems like it might fit in here too, covering such concepts as evolution and geology, as well as a ton of other random stuff.

The Information (James Gleick, in case there are other The Informations) is a really good book on information theory and the history and theory of communication, but it's pretty niche.

Journey to the Ants is bizarrely specific. Why myrmecology and not melittology? And why myrmecology when it doesn't look like you cover topics like botany?

[Calidovi]

A book of literary analysis cannot hope to replace the artistic merit of the works themselves.

But artistic merit isn't knowledge, per se.

An understanding of why those books have merit would be knowledge, and a book that explains how to analyze a book would fit within the criteria set for the project, but the books themselves might not. If you were compiling a list of great works, then yes; the literature itself would absolutely be applicable.

Remember that the book analyzing a great work of literature isn't trying to replace the artistic merit of the work - the issue is that artistic merit has a relatively small place in a compilation of knowledge.

...as I feel those things cannot really be learned from a book.

I'd really have to disagree with you on that. You can capture the fundamentals of any skill in writing just because of the nature of fundamentals: the logic and and techniques involved in any craft can always be boiled down to a set of general rules. You can't be a master at something just by reading about it, but reading about it sure as hell helps on the way to mastering it.

A more specific example is that you have 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' (instructions for how to cook) but not 'Figure Drawing for All It's Worth' (instructions for how to draw).

I was about to make a poorly done quip about cultural values and studies, but after reviewing the OP I have to say that I agree with you, Araph. An author's slant and beliefs should not take part in a study of human knowledge, as contemporary said beliefs may be. And how else can knowledge over a skill be transmitted through books? There's only one way to do so, and I think it's safe to assume that you should include what you can.

[Retropunch]

I think the reason why you haven't had many concrete suggestions is that this suffers from not clearly defining what your end goal is. On the one hand you're saying you want to encapsulate knowledge, but on the other you're saying that books should be 'readable' and not textbooks (which are arguably the best way to encapsulate knowledge). 

I'd make clear goals - should it be that, for each section, the reader fully understands the current subject or that they have a firm basic grounding on it? You could look at it like this: if everything got destroyed other than these 150 books, would they allow the person who found them to understand 2015? Or you could look at it as 'if everything was destroyed, would these books allow someone to rebuild a 2015-style society?'.

Lastly, as all others have said, literature doesn't really contribute to knowledge - it contributes to culture. That is important, but much less so in the grand scheme of things. I feel that you want to keep these in as it seems 'right' to do so, but ultimately most of these books contribute little to current day society. If they were so important to understanding culture, we wouldn't be able to function or understand it without reading them!

[Calidovi]

I think the reason why you haven't had many concrete suggestions is that this suffers from not clearly defining what your end goal is. On the one hand you're saying you want to encapsulate knowledge, but on the other you're saying that books should be 'readable' and not textbooks (which are arguably the best way to encapsulate knowledge). 

I'd make clear goals - should it be that, for each section, the reader fully understands the current subject or that they have a firm basic grounding on it? You could look at it like this: if everything got destroyed other than these 150 books, would they allow the person who found them to understand 2015? Or you could look at it as 'if everything was destroyed, would these books allow someone to rebuild a 2015-style society?'.

Lastly, as all others have said, literature doesn't really contribute to knowledge - it contributes to culture. That is important, but much less so in the grand scheme of things. I feel that you want to keep these in as it seems 'right' to do so, but ultimately most of these books contribute little to current day society. If they were so important to understanding culture, we wouldn't be able to function or understand it without reading them!

+1, please do everything he just said for the good of this thread.

[Sheb]

To be honest, this list is more like "150 books you need to be cultured" than "All of human knowledge in 150 books".