Methodology

Every entry in this directory is a claim: this person recommended this book, here. This page explains what we count, what we leave out, and how to check us.

What counts as a recommendation

We record a recommendation only when a public source shows the person endorsing the book in their own voice, or choosing it for a published list. Each one is labelled with one of three evidence types:

Explicit recommendation: The person says, in their own words, that the book is worth reading — for example a rating, a "must-read", or a list of books that changed their life. (2116 entries)
Year-end favourite: The book appears on a list the person published of their favourite or best books of a given year or season. (233 entries)
Prize or best-of list: The book won or was shortlisted for a literary prize, or appeared on a publication's annual best-books list. The choice was made by a jury or editors, not by one named person. (33 entries)
Canon selection: The person chose the book for a curated collection, such as the Long Now Foundation's Manual for Civilization, a library of books to sustain or rebuild civilization. (87 entries)

What we leave out

Books someone merely mentioned, quoted, reviewed critically or was photographed holding.
"Books I read this year" logs with no sign of endorsement.
Books a person advises against. For example, Dan Luu's programming list includes anti-recommendations, and only the books he praises appear here.
Claims we could only find in aggregator sites, listicles or social-media screenshots.
Low scores. From Derek Sivers's 1–10 ratings we include only 9s and 10s.

Which sources qualify

We prefer primary sources: the person's own website or newsletter, a reading list they published, or an interview in which they were asked specifically for book recommendations (such as Five Books). Organisation pages count when they publish a list the person chose, such as the Long Now Foundation's Manual for Civilization contributions or the Obama Foundation's annual lists.

Each entry stores the exact source URL, source type, the date of the source (when one is given), the date we last checked it, and a one-line explanation in our own words. Where a source names a book differently, for example a translation, a single volume of a multi-volume work, or a misspelling, we show the wording used in the source.

How entries are checked

Every entry links to the original place where the person made the recommendation. We never copy from secondhand "books recommended by" lists. Five Books interviews count as primary sources because the person chooses and discusses the books themselves. A script reads each interview's numbered book list and keeps it only if the interview's "recommended by" name matches the person.
An automated check re-downloads every source page and confirms the book's title still appears there. At the last check, 196 of 212 entries were confirmed automatically. The rest are on pages that need JavaScript or block automated requests (Gates Notes and Marginal Revolution), so we checked them by hand in a browser.
A validation script blocks publishing if any entry lacks a source, points to an unknown book or person, duplicates another entry, or would create an empty page.

Where sources come from

Every recommendation links to the place it was made: an interview, a blog post, a reading list on the person's own site, a podcast episode's show notes, or a video. The sources page lists all of them by type. For videos we only use ones published on the person's own channel (or an interview series they appeared in) where the books are named in the description, so anyone can check the list without watching the whole thing. We never take a recommendation from a third-party "books recommended by" collection.

Learn a skill

The skill search takes a goal in plain words, such as "improve my self-confidence", and maps it to one of 57 skills. Each skill has a hand-written list of title phrases and library subject headings. A book is filed under a skill when its title or subtitle contains one of those phrases, or when Open Library catalogues it under one of those headings; a few obvious fits and misfits are corrected by hand. Novels are left out. Results are ordered by how many people recommended the book.

The recommendation and its source are the recommender's. The skill label is ours: the person did not necessarily recommend the book for that purpose. Nothing you type is sent to an AI service, and the matching runs in your browser.

Cross-recommendations

When two or more people recommend the same book, each from their own source, the book appears on the most recommended ranking, and the pair appears under shared picks. Different editions and spellings of a title are merged into one record so that nobody's pick is counted apart. A person counts once per book, however many times they have praised it.

Book records

Titles and authors are normalised to the commonly used English edition. First-publication years and covers come from Open Library, corrected by hand where its data is wrong. When no cover is available, we show a plain typographic cover instead.

Photos and profile links

Portraits come from Wikimedia Commons and are used only when the licence is free (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA). Each person page credits the photographer, and every photo is listed on the photo credits page. The photos are stored on this site, so viewing them doesn't contact Wikimedia. Websites and social accounts come from the person's Wikidata entry and may go out of date.

"Books by" pages

When someone has written books, we show them in a separate "Written by" section, using Open Library. A book someone wrote is never counted as a recommendation. People we have no sourced recommendation for yet, but who have written at least two books, get a "Books by" page that asks readers for a source.

Prizes and best-of lists

Prizes & lists are kept apart from people. A prize jury or a publication's editors chose these books, so they are labelled “Prize or best-of list” and never presented as one person's recommendation. Each entry links to a report of the announcement and says whether the book won or was shortlisted. A prize counts as one recommender when books are ranked.

Lists

Lists such as Billionaires, Presidents or Journalists group the same sourced recommendations by who made them. Membership comes from public data: occupations, offices held and awards from Wikidata, and authored books from Open Library. Net worth comes from public Forbes profiles, used only when the profile clearly matches the person (the same X account as on Wikidata, or an exact name match for a businessperson). Otherwise it comes from Wikidata. Net worth figures change all the time and many people have none published, so the money lists are incomplete. Each list explains its rule and the date the data was checked.

Limits

Person pages show a selection of sourced recommendations, not complete reading lists.
Recommendations reflect the person's view at the date of the source; people change their minds.
"Canon selection" entries come from lists people compiled for a specific purpose, such as stocking a library for long-term thinking. That is not the same as naming a personal favourite.
Counts such as "recommended by 3 people" describe this directory only, not the world.

Corrections

If something is wrong, tell us. Corrections are reviewed by hand. Submissions are never published automatically.