Ask HN: How Do You Read? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#211

Post by pharke » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 11:38 AM UTC

ch3ckmat3 wrote: post #155

When I read a book, in the middle of a paragraph, I start getting new ideas related to the topic, and my mind shifts focus to the news ideas, while my eyes keep tracing the text on the book, and obviously I'm not "reading" now, I'm just wandering in my thoughts. And when I realize that I have drifted from the book, I just go back to the text from which my mind drifted. Some times this happens a lot, and I take so muc…

As others have said, take notes. The same thing happens to me and I find I can't get rid of the "itch" of a new idea without writing it down. Once you write it down you can easily continue reading. Revisit your notes later and explore the ideas.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#212

Post by pharke » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 11:43 AM UTC

s9w wrote: post #203

harubi wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But most books could be a 100th of the size they are

That depends entirely on the quality of the writing.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#213

Post by unixhero » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 12:37 PM UTC

SoylentOrange wrote: post #23

Sorry OP to hijack your thread I skimmed through the comments and folks have said they read slowly, but also say they average about a book a week. Is that really true? How many books would you say you finish on average per year? I read quite quickly but I average about a book every 2 weeks because of other commitments (consistently ~25 per year)

25 per year is phenomenal.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#214

Post by scitechx35 » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 12:42 PM UTC

It has changed from treating them as sacrosanct and precious (although some of them are), to treating them as a collection of blog post and articles. So now whenever I start reading a book, I just try to skim through it initially. If there's an interesting chapter or concept, I will read it thoroughly. Yes sometime, you might miss some interesting concept while skimming but that's ok. It's rare and pros outweighs cons.

I feel there's so much abundance of knowledge out there that it's important to curate what you read. Sometime you can read the entire book in a day. Sometime even a single page might take you days to read and understand. So it's also about the density of knowledge and content in a book.

Also, sometime, I will read multiple books in parallel based on my requirements or mood. One thing that does help is your highlights/notes (both digital/physical). Having some system to refer back in future always help.

Yes, you will still forget a lot of what you have read but that's ok. We tend to remember the important stuff. And in future if we want to gig deep, we can always come back and read again.

Some of these concepts are also explained by Naval Ravikant in one of his interviews. So you can also watch them.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#215

Post by BrunoBernardino » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

I’ll only add one tip here because I haven’t seen it mentioned, and it has helped me read and retain information better. Also read more interesting things to me.

I use Blinkist as a way to “skim/filter” books I _really_ want to learn more about.

I also keep notes (sometimes excerpts, sometimes my thoughts, sometimes a mix) in Bear for each book I read (even from Blinkist).

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#216

Post by ktaylor » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

Here is how I read and annotate scientific articles and books: http://www.founderscholar.com/how-to-read-doctoral-student/

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#217

Post by zJayv » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

Few ideas:

* this one from Paul Graham: you retain more from reading than you think you do http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html

* this one from James Somers: actively engage (don't read without a pen and paper, explain stuff to yourself as you go) http://jsomers.net/blog/kenjitsu

To my mind, 'what' trumps 'how'. A casual reading of 'Mrs. Dalloway' brings a greater reward than n airport non-fictions.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#218

Post by ryan-allen » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

guidoism wrote: post #16

Great question! In my fourth decade of life I’m finally figuring out the optimal way to do this myself. I’ve forgotten so so many books over the years that I supposedly read. Read How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer Adler. ( https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/... ) I’ve given this book to a bunch of people on my teams as it also helps with communicating id…

> One big big big thing I learned from the book is to not read a non-fiction book like it was a novel.

I did a double-take until I read 'non-fiction'. Yes, absolutely, I agree. Large non fiction books need to be approached strategically for time saving's sake.

Fiction on the other hand, I adore taking my time :)

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#219

Post by venmul » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

https://fs.blog/reading/

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#220

Post by EForEndeavour » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

frosted-flakes wrote: post #168

Stratoscope wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the comment was suggesting to not read a non-fiction book like a novel. When reading a novel, you wouldn't skim it and skip ahead to find out all the plot twists and surprise ending and spoil all the suspense and fun. With a nonfiction book, you're not worried about plot spoilers. You want to learn from the book. So skimming through it to pick up some of the gist before reading it in detail is a fine idea.

In general, I agree, but this is not always true. Some non-fiction books read very much like fiction. An example that I recently finished is Endurance by Alfred Lansing, which tells the story of Ernest Shackleton's failed mission to cross Antarctica on foot in 1914 (they got stuck in the ice only a few miles from land and spent the next year and a half stuck drifting on the ice before making an escape attempt when th…

Your example is technically not fiction, but as you point out, its main purpose is to enthrall the reader with a compelling story, not to convey a large amount of dense information in the way that textbooks, manuals, and academic papers do.

If a reader wanted to extract and retain as much information as possible from Endurance (say, if they were studying it in school, or read it but found they didn't retain a lot of the key points), they would still benefit from skimming, skipping around, taking notes, and other advice provided in this post. This advice applies to anyone who wishes to extract and retain information and understanding from any given piece of text, fiction or non. Just don't spoil compelling stories for yourself unless you really want to.