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I asked this question several months ago:

Title: What is a reasonable way to find canonical books?

I see dozens of questions of the form 'Is there a canonical book on {topic here}?'. My question is different. What are some reasonable ways to go about answering this kind of question for myself?

Currently I look at the most popular books in a category on amazon, but I find this unsatisfying, as the top spots tend to be filled with very introductory or very buzz-wordy books.

There were several thoughtful and thorough answers. Note that the answers were not reading lists but methods and resources for doing research. I'd like to know how I can modify this question such that it wouldn't be frozen and deleted.

This is a similar (but different) question, which seems to have been well received: How Do I Determine the Value of a Technical book? I don't believe its title reflect its final question: "Can you provide advice on finding more books along that vein (the Pragmatic Programmer)?"

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  • FYI, if anyone is wondering, the question being referred to is this one.
    – 40XUserNotFound
    Aug 4, 2014 at 19:16
  • Thanks Cupcake. I hadn't found that link yet. The final question was longer than the original, above. I think my attempt to make it less broad made it into a reading-list question, which wasn't actually what I was seeking.
    – bukzor
    Aug 4, 2014 at 19:32
  • The only reason I found your question at all was because it was linked to from the copycat website that you pointed out on MSO. You'll find the link at the bottom in a big red button that says "View full post on Programmers", or something like that. On a side note, those bastards nofollowed that link, which is a big Stack Exchange Creative Commons license no-no :P
    – 40XUserNotFound
    Aug 4, 2014 at 19:34
  • @Cupcake: We're getting a bit off-topic here, but where does it stipulate in the CC license that nofollow is forbidden in attributions?
    – Robert Harvey
    Aug 7, 2014 at 17:20
  • @RobertHarvey the bottom of the Stack Exchange pages say "user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required". That link goes to this blog post, which states that "links must not be nofollowed." I guess it's not strictly a part of the actual CC license, but don't people reusing CC licensed material have to follow the licencor's attribution terms?
    – 40XUserNotFound
    Aug 7, 2014 at 17:29
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    @Cupcake: No, I don't think so. The attribution terms are here, and it doesn't say anything about licensors spelling out their own attribution terms. Clearly, copying cc:wiki material to create one's own website and then nofollowing the return links is blatantly abusive, but it's an SEO issue, not a licensing one.
    – Robert Harvey
    Aug 7, 2014 at 17:40

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