04-25-2012, 10:36 AM
My experience tells me that this will not work as you wish. Here are some arguments.
Everybody is lazy to write "top-charts" of books. There is almost no discussion on the books contents here in the forum. Usually the discussions are specific and "problem oriented" and not "subject oriented".
And why you should believe somebody's opinion, if his interests (in the engineering field) are different than yours? For somebody a book will be "very detailed and difficult to read", for another one it will be too concise and lacking of detailed theory. I mean, every reader has his own level of knowledge and point of interest, so for a specific book one would say "it's fine", and another reader would say "it is not enough".
Another argument is that it is very, VERY EASY now to download any book, take a look at it (just scroll all the pages) and check if it suits you, if it describes your problem, etc. You'll have your own first impression, and you can compare easily many books in area of interest. Why you should wait for somebody else to review the book?
If you need an advice for a good book on a subject (i.e. "Please recommend a good book on reinforced concrete") you can post in the "Books request" section. There are such requests, and the responding users are even giving the links to the topics where the links for those books are.
Also consider that almost every "american" book has some review at the Internet bookshops, or at the publishers webpage. So, if you are still not sure if this book will suit you after scrolling its contents - just type its title in the browser and check for reviews.
By the way, my personal experience shows that most of the books have very optimistic and high grade marks, without deserving this. One of the big problems is that the titles are very loud and they sound like it a book for engineers, but the contents inside is enough only for students and represents the basics of the subject. Usually the good practice in this case is to put a "Basics","Foundamentals","Introduction", etc. describing words that show the depth of the topic coverage for university textbooks. On contrary books with deep and practical coverage of the topic usually have "Advanced", "Design", "Engineering", etc, and the reader expect that the authors are practicing engineers. Nevertheless, many authors \especially at the universities) put confusing titles, probably for increasing the interest and the buyers of the book beyond their own students. And this is the case where you need an advice from somebody - if this book is useful for the practice, or useful for the student.
Everybody is lazy to write "top-charts" of books. There is almost no discussion on the books contents here in the forum. Usually the discussions are specific and "problem oriented" and not "subject oriented".
And why you should believe somebody's opinion, if his interests (in the engineering field) are different than yours? For somebody a book will be "very detailed and difficult to read", for another one it will be too concise and lacking of detailed theory. I mean, every reader has his own level of knowledge and point of interest, so for a specific book one would say "it's fine", and another reader would say "it is not enough".
Another argument is that it is very, VERY EASY now to download any book, take a look at it (just scroll all the pages) and check if it suits you, if it describes your problem, etc. You'll have your own first impression, and you can compare easily many books in area of interest. Why you should wait for somebody else to review the book?
If you need an advice for a good book on a subject (i.e. "Please recommend a good book on reinforced concrete") you can post in the "Books request" section. There are such requests, and the responding users are even giving the links to the topics where the links for those books are.
Also consider that almost every "american" book has some review at the Internet bookshops, or at the publishers webpage. So, if you are still not sure if this book will suit you after scrolling its contents - just type its title in the browser and check for reviews.
By the way, my personal experience shows that most of the books have very optimistic and high grade marks, without deserving this. One of the big problems is that the titles are very loud and they sound like it a book for engineers, but the contents inside is enough only for students and represents the basics of the subject. Usually the good practice in this case is to put a "Basics","Foundamentals","Introduction", etc. describing words that show the depth of the topic coverage for university textbooks. On contrary books with deep and practical coverage of the topic usually have "Advanced", "Design", "Engineering", etc, and the reader expect that the authors are practicing engineers. Nevertheless, many authors \especially at the universities) put confusing titles, probably for increasing the interest and the buyers of the book beyond their own students. And this is the case where you need an advice from somebody - if this book is useful for the practice, or useful for the student.