There's no good way to discover high-quality books/resources for niche topics

I have trouble finding the "Programming Pearls" of various topics. For example, I'd like to find a book of similar quality and style that deals with networking, or distributed systems, or even non-technical subjects.

The problem: Amazon reviews are gamed, Goodreads is a popularity contest, and Google returns SEO-optimized "Top 10 Best Books" listicles that all recommend the same generic titles.

What I want is a community-curated, quality-filtered recommendation engine. Not "most popular" — the most insightful, the hidden gems, the one book that practitioners actually reference.

I notice a pattern where I'll discover something amazing by accident (like the Graphics Programming Black Book). Would be nice to just have a curated list of "the definitive resource" for each topic, maintained by practitioners.

2 comments

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indie_signal · 3d

This is essentially what HN does for tech topics — the collective wisdom of the comments usually surfaces the best resources. But it only works for topics HN cares about. I've thought about building a "HN for book recommendations" — a site where each topic has a ranked list of resources, and the ranking is determined by endorsements from verified practitioners (not random upvotes).

ai_orbit · 3d

The closest thing I've found is asking specific subreddits. r/math will tell you the exact textbook for topology vs. analysis. But it requires knowing the subreddit exists and asking the right question. What's missing is a structured database: Topic → Skill Level → Best Resource, maintained by people who actually work in the field.