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I've personally benefited from reading books on software development: _C# in Depth_, _Pragmatic Programmer_, _Clean Code_, _Operating Systems: Three Easy Principles_... these have all been useful resources in my career.

The problem is that I'm just a random person on the internet. Does your community trust me? I hope not; I just created an account five minutes ago. While I may be qualified to ask questions and post answers as a 1-rep user, I don't think I've earned enough community trust to recommend learning resources to strangers.

So, what would I like to see, and what problem are we solving that is not solved by current review services?

# 1. Limited participation

The main reason I'd want to see book recommendations from Codidact is the same reason I'd look for answers here: trusted expert advice. I've lurked on SO and Codidact for some years, and I can recognize some of the high-rep users. If studying a topic and I see that [high-rep-user] liked a book on that topic, I might pick it up.

I do not want recommendations by random strangers on the internet. I can get that from Google, Amazon, or any number of high-traffic websites. If you do implement book lists, please make it a privilege to initiate and participate in book discussions, with a lower (still privileged) threshold for voting. I'd rather miss out on a good book than waste time on a bad one.

I think that setting a reputation threshold will address Lundin's concern about experts' bandwidth to maintain book review quality. The follow-up question is whether Codidact's experts are willing to contribute to book reviews, or whether this will just be a dead-end feature.

# 2. One book as a topic, not a list of books

I think the best idea would be something similar to the current Q&A format, with one canonical discussion of a book where multiple users can write reviews on the same book.

However, I think it's slightly different from Q&A: there should not be a "question" without an "answer." If someone wants to recommend a book, they shouldn't just release a bare summary into the wild; I want to know why they recommend this book.

I think this is enough of a difference to distinguish book reviews from standard Q&A, so perhaps a section like EE's Papers.

# 3. Distinguish good books from good reviews of books

Bad reviews should be downvoted/deleted like regular Q&A. Good reviews of bad books should be retained and promoted, especially if the author can critique wrong sections of the book and explain what's wrong with the passage.

# 4. Disclaimers

Review authors should disclose their affiliation (or no affiliation) with the books they review. I'd like to see this as part of the UI (like a badge), not just a text blurb.

# 5. Tags

Books should have tags to indicate the appropriate topic, and reviews should indicate which version of book they review (if applicable).