Is there a site that provides recommended reading lists for topics?

For example, a site that would say

IF YOU WANT TO START LEARNING....PHILOSOPHY
Plato - Republic
M Aurelius - Meditations
...
...
...

IF YOU WANT...CLASSICAL PHYSICS
Newton - Pincipa Mathamatica
...
...


Am I making any sence here?
Basically a place that cuts through all the noise and only points you to the definitive works in thier proper order.

I guess they dont exist

I think the problem might be that there likely isn't a consensus on what the definitive works are in any particular area of emphasis. But I'm sure you can find lists of someone's recommendations.

I think it pretty much depends on what you wish to get out of the exercise and/or if/where you are formally studying.

Here are two quite different lists:

• http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/teaching_s...s/reading.html
  
• http://www.philosophypathways.com/programs/pak5.html

I'd suggest any titles featuring on both lists should probably be regarded as "must-reads".

I would recommend The Harvard Classics collection. Reading 15 minutes a day, you can get a complete liberal (as in general, not as in democrat) education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics

http://www.mobileread.com has a download section with links for the different books (52 total) (I believe it's in the public domain in the U.S.).

Thanks, just got Vol 1 from amazon

And Benedict, good stuff

Some of the volumes for The Harvard Collection are available for $1 per volume at Amazon as Kindle editions (search by "The Portable Library" to get more hits as opposed to "Harvard Classics"). They also have the first four volumes of the Science Fiction bookshelf (same idea but with key science fiction works).

Just browse through Amazon -- look up "The Republic" and see if there are any "20 Essential Works of Philosophy" lists linked to the item.

Ian Fleming had a pet project of collecting first editions of what he determined to be the most influential books ever published in several fields. When he died, the library found its way to the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington. Obviously, finding first editions is an expensive and unnecessary step, but you might consider it a starting point for your own reading.

http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/overview/fleming.shtml