Interesting... Lots of people seem to read a lot of books - I get lots of recommendations from people at work and stuff. People talk about reading a book a week or whatever.
I've never enjoyed reading books - right from childhood up to now. I try to avoid it. I have gifts from birthdays and christmases from years ago where the book sits entirely unread on the shelf for a year or two until I give it away once the guilt has subsided.
The thought of starting reading a book from start to finish just fills me with a sense of tedium and of wasting my time. I've not read a single book in perhaps the last 20+ years.
I feel like there is a glimmer of how I feel from this question: "how to get the most out of each book"... are you actually getting anything at all by reading each book? Are you like me and just feel like you should, but actually deep down you just don't really get anything from it?
Am I alone?
(P.S. I am a fluent reader and readily enjoy reading the news & technical docs (and don't really watch TV or movies that much - maybe an hour or two a week), but books - boy oh boy I simply couldn't care any less)
One of the things I’ve come to feel is that so much of the reading I do on the web (news, etc.) is fundamentally ephemeral in it’s relevance to my life and goals. Put another way, 90% of it doesn’t actually contribute to my knowledge or personal growth — it won’t matter tomorrow or once I realize some immediate goal. Sure, I get entertainment out of it, but that’s mostly it.
In my view, non-fiction books can be a good answer to that. Authors put a lot of work into curating a set of ideas and (in some cases) mental tools, models, etc. that have long-term, portable value across domains. They can also give you good insight into how experts think about certain problems. Some of the most thoughtful writers aren’t publishing their work in digestible chunks — and many published before the Internet was even invented.
on the contrary, I have found that reading stuff on the web is 90% of what contributes to my knowledge. I can say that whatever I am today (in terms of what I know), it is most probably because of the internet. Not just in terms of computers, but just daily life, directly or indirectly.
I think it is just a matter of the source in your case, which may have led you to feel that 90% of what you read doesn't contribute to your knowledge.
I've gained a ton though random wanderings on the internet and wikipedia and so on but it's really not the same as reading one in depth work a person put 500+ hours of their life into.
Yeah, a book is researched, thoughtful and laying a long, and complicated argument. Just the act of reading the long forms of ideas will make you better at thinking.
Reading a Wikipedia page or watching a video, almost always dismisses the ideas that lead to a conclusion, which is what you need if you want to THINK, not walk around with containerized ideas that other people came up with.
Indeed. There's a reason for that: Most modern non-fiction books are the result of a publisher giving a book deal to an author to expand an article they wrote and people who are going to spend $20 on a book want to feel like they are getting their money's worth (more pages == better deal).
Few modern authors are willing to buck the trend and publish a 100 page book, but they do exist. Take a look at Christopher Alexander's Notes on the Synthesis of Form.
I used to feel the same way, then I started reading books. So it might also be that you picked out the wrong books, or that whether you mostly read books or stuff on the web, whatever you go with you’ll put more effort in and hence find higher quality material.
I used to be the same and to a certain degree, information on the internet is better. There is simply more information and it updates regularly. A book will be out of date soon. And information on the internet is often free of charge.
The value that comes with a book is its structure and its limited size. You don't get all information, you'll get the important information. And it is structured in a way that helps you learning.
The way I look at reading is if you don’t read then you will only ever be exposed to ideas that people around you choose to share, and you’ll never hear or learn anything at a greater level than the smartest person in your local area.
But reading and books opens the world of ideas and knowledge to anyone. Nowadays, post internet and www, when information is abundant, reading long form books isn’t the advantage it used to be. But it can still be beneficial to read long form exposition by experts.
Fifty years ago, I may have agreed that books are invaluable, precisely because of the information contained within.
But ever since the Internet became a thing, and almost universally became the main source of information for everybody, I often feel like many people are holding on to books because they're not willing to let go.
...a case of false attribution in regards to format vs. content, if there's such a thing.
That doesn't really make sense. Most credible sources of information you find on the internet are sourced from books, not vice-versa. You don't read credible books about the Battle of Kursk that are sourced from YouTube videos, you watch credible YouTube videos about the Battle of Kursk that are sourced from books. If you read a Wikipedia article and scroll down to all the citations, many of them are from books.
It's not a format vs. content thing. I'd rather have all my books in a six-ounce Kindle than on massive bookshelves lining my walls. It's simply that the vast supermajority of recorded information collected by the human race has been in the form of books. If you stay on the internet, you're barely dipping your toes in the water.
That having been said, there are a ton of useless books that can easily be skipped, many of which stem from stretching an essay-sized idea into 200 pages. The Internet cut out a lot of that nonsense. And there are certain things, like programming, that you're usually better off learning directly from the internet. But once you're past the intellectual puddle-jumping of popular business and self-help, books are where it's at.
You're (rightfully) highlighting the importance of proper research into a subject, and books (currently) provide a better monetary incentive/reward for that, but other than that, you've basically proven my point.
Replace books with a (credible) data source on the Internet, and you'll have the same result you're describing.
I have in my hand a 1942 edition of the 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' by T.E. Lawrence that I am currently half way through. Can you suggest which credible data source on the internet is going to compete with Lawrence's first hand account of events?
An approved and verified word-by-word upload of it, preferably on some public institution's servers.
Judging by the amount of downvotes I've received, people are clearly not making the distinction between content and format, which I regress, was the point I was attempting to make.
>An approved and verified word-by-word upload of it, preferably on some public institution's servers.
Which servers do I have to visit to verify the verification and whose approval would this all rely on? With books, there are copyright libraries containing printed physical artifacts that I could use as a verification of a given printed text.
Also, I have the book and can stay immersed in it far easier than trying to read the same from a screen. I have read plenty of short stories on screens, but have abandoned every attempt at reading a full length novel that way, whereas in book form, I can finish a novel in a night. Books are simply better suited for this job, at least for me.
Well a book uploaded to a server is still a book. A book is a book because of the way it was written and how it was structured, not because it gets printed on dead trees. I think this is where you were losing the crowd.
Oh man I totally agree. It's a fetish for dead tree books. And to be perfectly honest I have the fetish, but I recognize that it's just a fetish. It irks me to no end that the whole education system keeps on pounding this idea into our heads (parent's heads) that they need to limit screen time because only physical books are important for education. Physical books are awesome but they will dwindle in popularity as our reading tech gets better.
It's useful to disambiguate between the book "format", that is, an amount of text of a certain size that has been edited put together in a clear manner, and the physical book, that is, a codex of dead trees with ink on it.
IMHO shitty trade and mass-market paperbacks should die a much needed death and the few books that survive should be Folio Society style, well bound books with good typography.
>IMHO shitty trade and mass-market paperbacks should die a much needed death and the few books that survive should be Folio Society style, well bound books with good typography.
Looking to my bookcase, do you think I am made of money?
I'm curious about what it is about the format that you don't like. Or are you really just saying that you don't like the type of books that people give you?
I love consuming other types of media but they all have their place.
For fiction (especially SF) I love audiobooks — I listen to them for a couple of hours before I go to bed and while I was working I listened to them during my commute.
For non-fiction I hate audiobooks, unless it's narrative non-fiction like Bill Bryson. I really need the ability to quickly jump between parts of the book. If fact this is the reason why I hate the kindle for non-fiction too.
For math or something that is easier to understand with animations I prefer videos. YouTube is such an amazing resource for educational materials that it blow my mind that people still read textbooks for topics like Group Theory or Calculus. Interactive websites also work for math too.
For the social sciences I like regular hardback books. I like the ability to flip between pages, to have one finger holding one section open while looking at another. I love to serendipitously see something while skimming.
For anything current I prefer blogs. A book isn't going to be as relevant for something written about how some feature of Rust sucks and here are some alternatives.
To circle back, one feature a book has that a lot of other media don't is that they are put together very carefully and edited and are very thoughtful about how the information is presented. I'm sure Knuth has been a LOT of time deciding on the ordering and wording of his books.
Reading fiction is like hiking on a trail; you follow someone else's thoughts for a while and take in the sights. In some sense it's a waste of time, but learning how to relax and calm your "I am wasting my time" anxiety can be a useful skill for your toolkit.
Even if you manage to spend 100% of your time on "productive" things, it's not obvious that that's an optimal way to live.
Reading more than 3-4 paragraphs in more than one stretch is usually too hard for me. When I was a kid (plus in university), I just thought I was lazy (also I did not think my eyes had a problem, either).
Anyways, I have to get my eyes checked out every year because I have type 1 diabetes, and my print-related disability was missed by ophthalmologists, year after year, until I was diagnosed with a medical problem that affects my peripheral nervous system, that is unrelated to the diabetes.
I posted on this thread how I manage to read several books per year, via screen readers. That takes time to get used to. I would recommend Voice Dream Reader, if you are interested.
You may want to try audio books via your local library, for just starting out. You can join some libraries in the US for a very nominal fee, if your local one does not have good media databases. That way, you get some of the best media databases of any public library imaginable.
Personally, I enjoy history books the most. On Tyranny and Black Earth are the books that got me in to reading. I also love seeing whatever book reviews FinancialTimes.com (subscription site) posted, and I usually will read at least 2 books per week.
i feel like something weird is going on with my eyes. After staring at a screen for an hour i have hard time focusing them and feels like thye are being pulll out of the eye sockets. Its really hard to describe but not sure what to do about it or how to even describe it.
I would like to not use any screens for a couple of month and see if that fixes it but I am unable to make room for that kind of a program.
Sorry for the late reply and sorry for this being long. I hope that you see this message.
This sounds just like a visual perceptual disability (visual motor deficit), such as convergence insufficiency (which I have), which 13% of children have, or some other form of accommodative dysfunction (or perhaps something else): https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/...
I just prefer to use a screen reader to deal with all of this, as it is easy and convenient for me to use, compared to most of those tips. If I am using standard, printed text, I usually use a notecard plus a mechanical pencil (as a stylus) to help me read.
Also note that on the bottom of page 3 there is a "sample" of what a visual perceptual disability is like. I do not flip p, d, b, letters, at all, like in the sample, but reading is literally that much work for me. It really is just about that difficult. I usually "detect words" by looking for various patterns of consonants/vowels, instead of actually reading whole words. If you were to read my writing, in general (not necessarily on HN), you would see a lot of duplicate prepositions or missed prepositions in my writing, too.
The cause of my convergence insufficiency is actually due to a very rare disease (there are only case reports and cohorts in the medical literature, at best, about it) that affects my autonomic nervous system. My diagnosis story (not an important read), is here: https://rareandextraordinarycom.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/fir...
Anyways, prior to being diagnosed with the rare disease, I was seeing random ophthalmologists (who are medical doctors) that were not associated with a hospital at a local academic medical center.
After I was diagnosed with the rare disease, the ophthalmologist that was works at the hospital (that is tied to a medical school), examined my eyes very closely. Anyways, there are three ways that this rare disease affects my eyes. Most importantly, I have convergence insufficiency.
I was referred to a neuro-ophthamologist for this, and there is not much that one can do for convergence insufficiency. They can test out the degree of accommodative dysfunction and quantify it, and give you tips and accommodations for work.
Also, actually any ophthamologist/doctor can sign off for things like Bookshare.org/LearningAlly.org/BARD library (https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login//NLS) which are tremendously helpful if you have something like this. Bookshare is actually the largest digital library in the world, and it is only for people with print-related disabilities. It is a valuable and precious resource.
If you cannot get a proper diagnosis even with these tips, then you may want to look for an optometrist who does "vision therapy", at least for the diagnosis.
When you have thoughts, including your inner monologue and what you say aloud to other people, they are entirely made up of words and phrases and ideas. If you had never been inculcated by a culture of people, you would have no complex thoughts at all because you wouldn’t have any language to hang them on. Reading books is a really great way to develop empathy by understanding how others think, and also broadens your arsenal of useful thoughts for navigating the world.
“A dog can look forward to seeing his master. But can he look forward to seeing his master next Wednesday?”
Nope, you're not alone, you took the words right out of my ...typing.
I like reading, i.e. if there's a news topic, I prefer reading an article than watching a video about it, but I detest books.
In my opinion, authors fill books with superfluous nonsense that I couldn't be bothered with. It's often the same with news articles, I hate it when journalists start telling personal stories that convey emotion. It's just... terrible and a waste of time, in my opinion.
The idea's in media and the news necessarily end up dumbed down to appeal to a wide variety of people. There's also a bunch of things you just can't say if you're broadcasting to millions. Even reddit, hackernews and niche forums end up being rehashes of the same thing. Almost all of it is tainted by some commercial or political agenda as well.
Once you get bored and start to see the patterns, books are there to expand your worldview.
Well you're not alone. I feel like I've never read a book that couldn't have been compressed down to an article and provided the same value (information dense books like textbooks excluded).
I do enjoy listening to audiobooks though. But that's more of something I do when I'm on an airplane or long car ride. That's what I always did in school when we had to "read" something.
> Are you like me and just feel like you should, but actually deep down you just don't really get anything from it?
No no, that is not the case. I do enjoy reading books and get good stuff from them. It's just that I feel some stuff gets lost eventually. This thread is making me see it in a different light though :)
Just find a book that you're actually interested in reading and it will make reading fun. I'm almost never interested in books people recommend me, and my circle almost never reads books I recommend them.
I clicked on this link hoping to share my conundrum with reading books, and you so perfectly captured my own perspective there's nothing more for me to add. I'm glad I'm at least not alone.
I've never enjoyed reading books - right from childhood up to now. I try to avoid it. I have gifts from birthdays and christmases from years ago where the book sits entirely unread on the shelf for a year or two until I give it away once the guilt has subsided.
The thought of starting reading a book from start to finish just fills me with a sense of tedium and of wasting my time. I've not read a single book in perhaps the last 20+ years.
I feel like there is a glimmer of how I feel from this question: "how to get the most out of each book"... are you actually getting anything at all by reading each book? Are you like me and just feel like you should, but actually deep down you just don't really get anything from it?
Am I alone?
(P.S. I am a fluent reader and readily enjoy reading the news & technical docs (and don't really watch TV or movies that much - maybe an hour or two a week), but books - boy oh boy I simply couldn't care any less)