America publishes roughly 288,000 books every year, more than any other country in the world. Although this is a wonderful reflection of our country’s thirst for knowledge, such a tidal wave of publications is a nightmare for people looking for top quality works. Where on earth do you begin to sort through the piles and piles of books?

Here at Heritage, we have done the hard work for you and narrowed down the ocean of books into a condensed list of sources so you can spend less time searching and more time reading.

Want to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War with a book about Abraham Lincoln? If you try searching for a good book on your own, it might be another 150 years before you actually find one. Our Civil War page has trimmed the list of 15,603 books on Abraham Lincoln down to five, all of which are of the highest caliber.

Has the “Occupy Wall Street” movement encouraged you to learn more about economics and capitalism? Before you drown in the 1,622,127 economics books listed on Amazon.com, check out our recommendations. Also, don’t walk out on your job before you read Jay Richards’s book Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem.

This condensed list of resources is only a small part of our revamped First Principles Web site. We have taken a world of snarled and previously impenetrable materials and organized it by subject matter to produce a user-friendly site. Visit our new site and learn how to help return our country to its founding principles.

Samuel Sheetz is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. Click here for more information on interning at Heritage.