A number of posters on this site regard the "lore" highly as revealed in their posts. Usually, this is in reference to books that can be found in game and read. Not all of the in-game books are created equally with regard to trustworthiness.

This thread is to critically examine as many of the in-game books as possible to determine which ones should be regarded highly for their accuracy in portrayal of this game world and which ones should not be regarded highly at all.

We want to rate the accuracy level of each in-game book so we may determine just how trustworthy each is from the standpoint of "lore" or how accurate is the portrayal of this game world (including its history).

The ratings we will try to use are:

1. Factual - this represents the highest level of accuracy and trustworthiness (this kind of work must be error free and have evidence to back it up)

2. Reliable - this kind of work does well, but may have some (known) inaccuracy

3. Unreliable - this kind of work purports to be true but either is contradicted elsewhere or has no corroborating evidence to support it or gives some internal reason to question its validity

4. Worthless - anything that doesn't qualify for the other three shall fall here

I will start us off with some examples:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Modern_Heretics - I was tempted to list this as factual but upon reading found one factual error and thus rate it as reliable.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Azura_and_the_Box is worthless as it is fiction.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Great_War_(Book) qualifies as unreliable as the author admits to filling in gaps with "educated conjecture."

How would you rate the accuracy of any specific given book in-game? (Pick as many as you wish to address and anolyze the accuracy/trustworthiness level).

Ideally, we want to look at every in-game book and make a dispassionate determination on each.

The beauty of ES lore is that it's full of contaddictory informations or different versions of the same events. Some people take too litteraly what is written in the books forgetting that ignorance, superstition and personal or cultural bias influenced the writers. They should be anolyzed in the same way an historian anolizes the sources and critically dissects them.

Many books also contain description of actual events in the form of allegories because it creates a bigger, lasting impression in the mind of readers so a certain caution should be employed when reporting the account of an event as described in a text without considering who and when composed it.

Can you pick a couple of in-game books and anolyze their trustworthiness/accuracy?

Can you provide examples of in-game books that have the contradictory information?

Hmm, I understand where you are coming from, but this is going to be a futile endeavor. For one thing, in many cases all contradictory accounts are true - take all religious myths for example, or the events that occur during dragon breaks. Additionally, like in real life there aren't any objective sources - they are all biased, so we can't label anything definitively "factual" in good conscience. Even the beloved PGE is written with an incredibly heavy-handed Imperial bias. Even texts that are canonically unreliable often have useful tidbits of information, so outright dismissing them is inadvisable. It's way better to take all of the sources into account (keeping in mind what motives/biases they might have on the subject at hand) and extrapolate from that then to rely on a small hierarchy of "accepted" sources.

Just take a look at all the sources referencing Red Mountain/Nerevar's death.

Here is a link which gives a list of books in Skyrim for those who wish to participate in this discussion but don't know where to start. Pick one from the list and anolyze it.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Books_(Skyrim)

As others have mentioned, the various sources about Nerevar and Red Mountain. Also, the differing versions of Tiber Septim's life between the Pocket Guides and the Arcturian Heresy.

There's also the wildly inconsistent depictions of Akaviri soldiers between various sources - ranging from snakes, to men with snakelike lower bodies, to bipedal men with snake features to simply men with foreign features.

The 36 sermons of Vivec are a beautiful conglomerate of facts, lies and fiction, often retold in the form of allegories, to justify the existence of a religious order (and maybe the godhood of the Tribunal itself) that guides Dunmer people of Morrowind according to ALMSIVI will.

If you want to collect books that contraddicts one another search for accounts of the battle of Red mountain or about the life of Tiber Septim.

This. Much of the lore is secondhand information.

I feel it's sometimes good to take a few steps back, look at our lore, and take a moment to comprehend just how little we actually know.