I really like the "positive reviews should look like X, negative reviews should look like Y" information. I've never seen it before, and I expect it to actually be useful when looking for resources.

I'm cofused by how "deep" and "surface" are being used in your first picture. From how the "What" and "How" books are described (and from the examples you give), I would have called "What" the deep resource, and "How" as the "surface level" resource. How are you thinking of it?

Dude, I'm just a guy, but I love this blog. It has changed my head.

Three books! That's great! I gotta tell you...

Here's a practice that I have long used to gain a skill, or just get through a project. I get the three best-looking books on the topic. The classic, the bible, the tome. (I avoid the "for dummies.") Reading them, I determine my favorite AUTHOR, the guy whose outlook and philosophy and depth and commitment to the skill impresses me the most. Then I CALL THAT SUCKER UP ON THE PHONE.

It helps that I'm as personable and likable on the phone as I am in person. I describe my project a little, then I ask where to get the special sauce or the obscure gizmo. That's always an ice breaker. Before long, he's talking; he's asking ME about my project. I keep it fairly short, having the pertinent questions and data at hand, but I always ask if I can call again (never been refused). When I get stuck or something, I call back.

I have gotten an incredible amount of tutoring and mentoring over the years. Enough to completely restore wood-and-canvas watercraft, build a couple of mandolins, rebuild vintage guitar amps, build a bicycle frame from SCRATCH, install a solar system, sew a full set of outdoor gear, and install a slate roof. More, too. The wood-and-canvas canoe guy actually took to calling ME, asking how things were going, checking on my progress, adding tips he forgot to mention. He sent me a gallon of the obsolete historically correct dope. I have straddled a roof ridge, on a cell phone with the world's number one slate guru talking me through an origami copper flashing technique. To this day, no leaks.

So there--I feel like I have contributed something to acknowledge all the great stuff I have read here.

I would offer $20 to anyone who can give examples for the three different books in an area, that they actually read, up to a maximum of $60. (e.g. three books in Linear Algebra, or three books in carpeting, or three books about programming).

I love your thoughts on this. As someone who has studied educational design and psychology, I'd like to offer a perspective on what you're describing.

In educational psychology, there are three categories of educational goals: knowledge, skills, and attitudes. (Presently, there is a bias against teaching attitudes, so the "KSA" is frequently changed to "knowledge, skills, and abilities," which is incorrect and redundant.)

It seems that your "What" book represents the knowledge of the field, the "How" the skills, and the "Why" the attitude.

I think you would be interested in reading about Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. I think it would integrate well with the model you are creating, especially in light of the comments earlier about what "depth" means in this context and whether "What" or "How" is of greater depth. Either one can be shallow or deep as they relate to different kinds of learning.

Thank you for the article. It's very interesting.

My suggestion for the topic of Decision Making:

What-book: 2011 Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow

How-book: 2013 Chip and Dan Heath - Decisive

Why-book: 2007 Phil Rosenzweig - The Halo Effect

A very interesting technique, I especially like the examples of what reviews will say about each type of book.  

Lets see if I can create a few example lists from my library:

Experiencing Flow 

What Book: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

How Book: Joy on Demand: The Art of Discovering the Happiness Within Book by Chade-Meng Tan

Why Book: Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity by Edward Slingerland

Having low conflict romantic relationships

What Book: The Usual Error by Kyeli Smith and Pace Smith

How Book: It's Not You, It's the Dishes by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson

Why Book: Loving in Flow: How the Happiest Couples Get and Stay That Way by Susan K. Perry

I curated this for being a handy abstraction for learning. As comments downthread have said, things like distinguishing positive from negative reviews, and the actual examples you gave (procrastination and calculus), were both really helpful. And the post was as short+simple as it could be.

(I'd love to see more examples in the comments.)

this is very interesting, i'm likely to try it, thank you :)

btw, i also found the graphic in the beginning confusing

Anyone successfully approached this with computer programming? It's a subject I think I have reason to believe I would be talented at (I have exhibited strong aptitude for mathematics and languages), but I don't see a good path forward on working at it, so I learn other things. I think the "how" book might be something like codeacademy or khanacademy, but how about the "what" book or the "why" book?

I quite like this approach. :) I’ll see if I can apply it to electrical engineering and pure mathematics soon, as those are the subjects I am studying in school. Linear algebra will be my first stop.

I haven't used this technique, but this feels like largely a sad thing about me not really deliberately trying to thoroughly learn a novel skill. Curious if anyone else has reports on this technique.

I will second Hazard's comments on the way to approach the reviews. Seems so obvious after you said it.

I am wondering what you were considered in terms of skills.

I think the general approach should work really well in some settings. I do wonder what the limits might be. For instance, I could probably use this approach well to learn how to write in a programming language, or how to weld or how to machine parts. I'm not sure it's as helpful for, say, learning a new language.

Perhaps the distinction is between skill and knowledge?

I love this frame for learning something new, so I'll toss out a triad of books.

Subject: Journalism (These works are more complementary than overlapping. The third selection is an example rather than an explanation. It could easily be substituted with The Right Stuff or Frank Sinatra Has a Cold or any work that speaks to you.)

What: The Investigative Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases, and Techniques

How: Writing for Story, Jon Franklin

Why: All the President's Men

Do you generally read the "What" book all the way through, or only use it as a reference when you get stuck? Could a Q&A forum, e.g. StackExchange, serve as the "What" book, do you think?