How I Curated My Top Books to Stay True to My-shelf

The story of how I finalized my online bookshelf. And I'm not sorry for the pun in the title.

A Chapter for Books

Have you ever wondered what goes into shaping someone's thinking? As I reflected on this question, I realized my website was missing a crucial element. My experience, skills, and projects are all outputs of my effort, but there was nothing about what went into shaping my thinking. That's when I had the epiphany to add a relatively leisurely component of books to the sitemap. In addition to giving due credit to the role books have had in my journey, this also allowed me to add a touch of personalization that often gets neglected when talking about work.

The Narrative Structure

With the decision for an online bookshelf made, I set about to initiate what I thought would be a half-hour activity of listing the top books that fit the criteria. That's when the enormity of my endeavor dawned on me. There was no point in filling out a list with every book I liked, so there would have to be certain criteria for finalizing the bookshelf. I decided to establish the following limits:

Limit the Count

Keeping any number greater than 25-50 would go against the point of curation and would just be a long list. So, the first criterion was to constrain the total number within that range - I decided to start with 30.

Limit the Fiction

As much as I wanted to include a range of classics (Dickens, Hemingway), literature (Shakespeare), drama (Atwood, Orwell), fantasy (Tolkien, Pratchett), comedy (Wodehouse, Heller), sci-fi (Asimov, Wells) - I knew I had to limit fiction books from overtaking the collection. Even though their impact is undeniable, I painfully decided to keep a 'quota' on the number of fictional titles and focus on non-fiction.

Limit Recency

It was, of course, tempting to list the latest book I liked and start my way backward. I had to avoid the recency bias and go back in time to my college days and even before to remember what books had made the most impact. Therefore, it was important to keep the date range in a wide spectrum, rather than focusing only on books published in the last few years.

Limit Outdated, Political, and Manipulative Concepts

I was a huge Ayn Rand and Nietzsche fan in my formative years. I'll admit that I found Rand's concept of individualism fascinating. However, as I matured, I realized that Rand's central tenet of selfishness being the key virtue was categorically incorrect. Similar to the Nazi appropriation of Nietzsche's works, it's no surprise that Rand is being touted by US right-wingers. So, even though I liked both Rand and Nietzsche quite a lot earlier, they were respectfully given a pass for inclusion in the final collection.

For the same reason, I decided to exclude books that promote manipulation or an antagonistic, us-against-them, war-like perspective - No Machiavelli, Robert Greene or Sun Tzu (Gordon Gekko fans forget how the movie ends). I would any day go with Carnegie's approach - sincerity over any "tricks".

Limit Author Repetitions

When you love a book from an author, there's a high probability that you'll like their other works as well. I had to avoid the selection from being dominated by a menagerie of books by single authors. Hence, I decided to select my favorite one (like a parent selecting their favorite child) for multiple titles by a single author, even though all titles deserved the spot in almost all cases.

Limit Lengthy Reviews

I had to give my two cents for each selected title but needed to avoid lengthy reviews due to personal time constraints. I decided to keep more detailed reviews for new titles as and when I read them and had the luxury of time to write up my thoughts.

Relax - Limit the Limits

After the sixth "limit," I decided to relax and enjoy the process. Otherwise, it defeats the whole point!

With the framework set, I started with the "longlist" (fittingly similar to the Booker Prize selection process) and decided to finalize the books.

Takeaways

Curating this list was a journey of reflection and discovery. I'd love to hear what you think, if we share any common favorites, and above all, if you have any new recommendations.