Open book & read it til done then switch. Anything I care about will involve me reading multiple texts on the topic or eventually rereading so I generally don’t worry about figuring everything out. Understanding takes time.
Ask HN: How Do You Read?
221–230 of 258 posts
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
How to Read a Book is great, and so is the sarcastic response How to Read Two Books: http://scriptoriumdaily.com/how-to-read-two-books-erasmus-ad... :)
I'm considering writing How to Read Ten Thousand Books , as mentioned to a friend in a similar discussion earlier. Once I complete the preliminary research. Adler's book is indeed highly recommended.
I would be the first one to read it, maybe you'd really do it?
Because I have a lot of books around mu house which I started reading, one is 1/2 finished, the other 1/10 finished, then there's another one that I started reading and left somewhere at work etc...
And I have no idea how to deal with it because it's really hard to concentrate on one book, but when I switch to the other I have to go a bit backwards in order to remember the idea.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#223I keep journals of books I read. I generally record interesting thoughts I had while reading and impressions when I’m done.
For more technical books like maths I tend to keep workbooks for each one. I do the exercises and distill my understanding in notes as I go.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#224I try not to read as many books as possible but instead limit it to 2-3 per week. I could probably do one a day if I Really wanted to, but I find spacing it out helps me spend time in between reflecting on the book I just read, what it means to me, and I generally make note of that somewhere if I really want to remember it.
Is that 2-3 fiction books per week? Where do you find time to read 2-3 books per week? Do you speed read?
I commute to work on the train (~ 40 minutes each way) and spend a lot of time reading after work or on the weekends. I don't think I speed read, but not sure what the threshold is for that.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#225I've configured my mac to read-aloud any text I've selected when I press the option+cmd+v keyboard shortcut. It's available through the accessibility settings. There is also the option the increase the reading speed. The standard text-to-speech vocalisation is actually quite good, it avoids strain on the eyes, help you detect spelling errors when proof reading a text, and it can save you a lot of time. Another tip fo…
I do the same thing, using accessibility text-to-speech, but I use Karabiner-Elements to map my caps lock key to speak. I also use the text-to-speech on iPhone to turn my articles into "podcasts", by swiping down.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm considering writing How to Read Ten Thousand Books , as mentioned to a friend in a similar discussion earlier. Once I complete the preliminary research. Adler's book is indeed highly recommended.
I would be the first one to read it, maybe you'd really do it? Because I have a lot of books around mu house which I started reading, one is 1/2 finished, the other 1/10 finished, then there's another one that I started reading and left somewhere at work etc... And I have no idea how to deal with it because it's really hard to concentrate on one book, but when I switch to the other I have to go a bit backwards in ord…
I'm at least half serious. The epigraph would of course com from Ecclesiastes.
An upshot is that you cannot in any meaningful sense read 10,000 books in a short period of time, though it's a tractable option over, say, a lifetime: 10,000 books in 60 years is 160 books a year, or about 14 a month. That's considering a new book every couple of days.
To which you could apply the techniques described in Adler's book. To add to that, you need some sort of information capture system that scales, such that you're aware of the books you've attempted to read, and what your quick-perusal impression was.
I'm also convinced that more information is useful only in a general sense. Information as with all else follows a Zipf or Power function fo significance and utility, both in area and time of impact. Much of what we are exposed to either doesn't concern much by subject, area, or time, with news being very high up on that list. News matters when current events have a high probability of impact on your life. The fact that newspaper readership in the US peaked during WWII, and has declined at a virtually constant rate ever since, has much to do with this. During the war, small events in faraway places could have a significant impact (and did). Since then ... not quite so much, and focus on individual events has proved largely less productive.
(Hrm: maybe the news is grossly misdesigned? That thought's occurred to me for quite some time.)
What you describe in terms of maintaining state and sense of place within a book is something I struggle with. The idea of learning and forgetting curves, and of paced repetition, should probably play into that. A key issue being "does this material warrant paced repetition?" Because if you've got to repeatedly process the information you hear, that's going to put a cap on what you can learn.
So, the idea of progressive reading not only of a given topic, but over the entire corpus is something you've got to consider. What's a reasonable progression through a set of works? Which is pretty close to saying "what is an effective pedagogy?"
The benefits of reading a wide range of works is that patterns, similarities, and patterns emerge. The disadvantage is that there's a great deal of repetition, and of course, a large amount of bullshit, some accidental, some intentional.
Not all bullshit is useless. Bullshit that's become culturally relevant and/or integrated is useful not because it's true, but because it explains and describes that culture. Reading with this in mind is useful, though also difficult.
And there's the problem of exposing yourself to repeated bullshit and/or toxicity. At a certain point that becomes damaging even when you're aware of it. The biggest problem with propaganda isn't that it's false, it's that it's effective even on those who create it. "Drinking your own Cool Aid" is a phrase because reasons, and some of the most harmful doctrines are harmful because their originators are fully convinced or swayed by them.
There's probably a rough structural outline of the work in these paragraphs, FWIW. Anything you'd add/remove/change?
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#227When 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…
I have similar experience while reading any other material as well or while watching a TV show like Billions. However, I currently believe that is part of the value and not majorly a distraction. That exploration leads me to discover directions which the author has not taken, tie the story to my own experiences, think about it further and internalize what I have read if it is important.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wasn’t paying enough attention. This is a problem. For few weeks I am trying to conquer it by focusing eyes onto infinity while looking at the computer. It helps me wade off thoughts other than whats printed (and I just read) on the screen. So read a line, focus to infinity (and picturise what was said in the line), read next line. Experiment is on only for a few weeks now, but it surely helps in attention and wa…
Sounds a little unhealthy for your eyes. Why not just close them?
On the contrary I think it could be healthier to focus on infinity once in a while. You know how they say to look far every once in a while to relax your eyes.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#229Fiction: I use small post-its to mark when a new character is introduced.
Non-Fiction: I hop around in the book first, then I read it through from beginning to end making notes in my book of stuff. These notes may link to other books. I also use post-its to mark bits I find most intersting or useful.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#230When 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…
This is one of the reasons I use a screen reader, but I have a print-related disability. I gave details about my setup on this thread.
Oh god... yes! I also prefer screen to paper, especially for technical topics. You cannot fight the itch to pick your phone or go to you your PC and search something you just picked from your wandering thoughts! On screen makes it much more easier to come back to the book:)
Anyone?