About This Site
What this is
The Socrates Bookshelf (book.themodel.be) is a book guide for people who have been defeated by philosophy books before. This English edition selects five titles currently available on amazon.com and presents them in a reading order that won't defeat you — from the courtroom of the Apology to the prison cell of the Phaedo. A Japanese edition and a Korean edition are also maintained, alongside sister shops such as The Nietzsche Bookshelf.
The editorial room runs a family of philosopher bookshelves and a section-by-section reading archive of the primary texts (in Japanese) — for example Heidegger's Being and Time, introduction. Every review and reading-order recommendation on this site rests on that first-hand reading and on explicit bibliographic checking.
The one honesty note that shapes this site
Socrates wrote nothing. Everything we know about him comes at second hand — chiefly from Plato and Xenophon, and, less flatteringly, from the comic poet Aristophanes. "Plato's Socrates" is a literary character voicing Plato's own philosophy; the historical man behind him is genuinely hard to recover (scholars call this "the Socratic problem"). We do not paper over that. Where a book gives you Plato's Socrates, or a modern reconstruction, or an illustrated summary, the review says exactly which — and treats the gap as part of the subject, not an embarrassment to hide.
How books are chosen and rated
- Judgements about the works themselves rest on the editorial room's first-hand reading. Star ratings are our own; no Amazon customer reviews are reproduced.
- Where a book is a graphic guide, a short introduction, or a modern reconstruction, the review says exactly what it is and what role it can honestly play. A guide is scaffolding, not the building — and we say so.
- All descriptions are written by us; no publisher copy is reproduced.
- Quotations from the Apology and Phaedo are either standard renderings or our own editorial glosses of the Greek, with the Stephanus number given — not reproductions of the translations under review.
- Cover images are jacket-style images of our own design and differ from the actual covers.
- Prices and availability change, so we do not print them; always check the Amazon product page.
Amazon link disclosure
As an Amazon Associate, this site (The Socrates Bookshelf) may earn from qualifying purchases.
Book links on this edition go to product pages on Amazon (amazon.com). If a purchase is made through them, this site may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Commissions never influence the ratings — recommending books you will actually finish, rather than books that merely sell, is in the end what serves readers best.
Privacy policy
This is a static site; no personal information is collected server-side. The browser's localStorage is used solely to count link clicks (to improve the ranking's accuracy); that data stays in your browser and is never transmitted. Once you follow a link to Amazon, Amazon.com's privacy policy applies.
Contact
For corrections and inquiries, please use the contact address on our sister site soqdoq.com.