How To: Read more books • Hacker News Board

Re: How To: Read more books

#11

Post by krmmalik » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 4:53 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #9

badave wrote: post #4

tl;dr: Stop visiting hacker news, reddit and other blogs; stop interacting with people; get books from the library for free. My opinion: seriously, blogs should count as minibooks and everytime I read a particularly good and in depth blog or something that elicits the "I'm smarter for reading that" moment, I'm going to keep a tally. That tally I'll consider a chapter of a book. At 300 chapters, I'll count that as a b…

Hang on: you read about 100 "particularly good and in depth blog"s per day?

No, what i'm saying is. If you sum up the amount of text i read (incl speech converted to text) from blogs and video etc, then it would come to about 2 to 300 books at the end of the year.(in my estimation).

Re: How To: Read more books

#12

Post by JustAGeek » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 4:55 PM UTC

The best way to read more books is to get a job where you have to commute. And by that I mean commute by train.

That's giving me almost 2 hours per day for pretty uninterrupted reading. Not that I read 100 books per year but it seems that it's much more than my co-workers, so I guess I'm above average.

Because of that I actually enjoy commuting. :)

Re: How To: Read more books

#13

Post by revorad » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 4:56 PM UTC

badave wrote: post #4

tl;dr: Stop visiting hacker news, reddit and other blogs; stop interacting with people; get books from the library for free. My opinion: seriously, blogs should count as minibooks and everytime I read a particularly good and in depth blog or something that elicits the "I'm smarter for reading that" moment, I'm going to keep a tally. That tally I'll consider a chapter of a book. At 300 chapters, I'll count that as a b…

Wow, are you really reading 30,000 good blog posts in a year? Could you please share what blogs you read? I find most blogs tiring and annoying, because there is so little new content and so much reposting and regurgitating of the same things going on over and over again.

I am rediscovering what a joy it is to read books. It seems it does take a lot of work to write well. Blog posts, almost by definition, are not meant to be well-written in terms of depth and succinctness.

But, maybe I'm just reading all the wrong blogs.

Re: How To: Read more books

#14

Post by sp332 » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 5:02 PM UTC

mcav wrote: post #8

Aaron recommends isolating yourself from other people, stopping reading blogs entirely, and getting rid of other hobbies. If your goal is to read a lot , obviously it's primarily a matter of finding time to read. Aaron's advice is extreme, though. Don't isolate yourself entirely -- from people, the world, or even social media like blogs. Each of those has value. As the saying goes, moderation is key.

Finding time is never an issue. Every day, you are handed 24 shiny new hours to spend. The real issues (which Aaron addresses) are motivation and mental ability.

Re: How To: Read more books

#15

Post by rortian » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 5:03 PM UTC

I wonder if pg ever considers paying Aaron to stop writing stuff. People that read stuff like this have got to start wondering, "Is it really a good thing to get a payoff before I am ready for it?"

Re: How To: Read more books

#16

Post by 10ren » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 5:03 PM UTC

badave wrote: post #4

tl;dr: Stop visiting hacker news, reddit and other blogs; stop interacting with people; get books from the library for free. My opinion: seriously, blogs should count as minibooks and everytime I read a particularly good and in depth blog or something that elicits the "I'm smarter for reading that" moment, I'm going to keep a tally. That tally I'll consider a chapter of a book. At 300 chapters, I'll count that as a b…

idea: a social aggregator, that votes on blogs that elicit that moment; organized by category to form virtual books of 300 chapters.

Re: How To: Read more books

#17

Post by mcav » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 5:12 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #14

mcav wrote: post #8

Aaron recommends isolating yourself from other people, stopping reading blogs entirely, and getting rid of other hobbies. If your goal is to read a lot , obviously it's primarily a matter of finding time to read. Aaron's advice is extreme, though. Don't isolate yourself entirely -- from people, the world, or even social media like blogs. Each of those has value. As the saying goes, moderation is key.

Finding time is never an issue. Every day, you are handed 24 shiny new hours to spend. The real issues (which Aaron addresses) are motivation and mental ability.

You get 24 hours each day, true. But it's not just about motivation and mental ability. The time you have available to read is only time you aren't doing something else. If you have a job, or school, or family duties, or anything else, you may not have much time available to read. Your downtime is available for you to use as you please -- via reading, or watching TV, or whatever. That's when it's an issue of motivation. Sometimes people don't have a lot of downtime.

Re: How To: Read more books

#18

Post by dylanz » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 5:15 PM UTC

I don't like carrying books around. An ebook reader has me reading a lot more now. Just load it full of good reads, and you feel obligated to get through it all. Also, scanning through HN for good book recommendations. I'm reading "The Art of Learning" right now, and loving it (it's got me back into chess!).

Re: How To: Read more books

#19

Post by dylanz » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 5:17 PM UTC

JustAGeek wrote: post #12

The best way to read more books is to get a job where you have to commute. And by that I mean commute by train. That's giving me almost 2 hours per day for pretty uninterrupted reading. Not that I read 100 books per year but it seems that it's much more than my co-workers, so I guess I'm above average. Because of that I actually enjoy commuting. :)

I'm doing a train commute as well, and also loving it because of exactly what you explained :)

Re: How To: Read more books

#20

Post by sgoraya » Tue, Mar 02, 2010, 5:30 PM UTC

JustAGeek wrote: post #12

The best way to read more books is to get a job where you have to commute. And by that I mean commute by train. That's giving me almost 2 hours per day for pretty uninterrupted reading. Not that I read 100 books per year but it seems that it's much more than my co-workers, so I guess I'm above average. Because of that I actually enjoy commuting. :)

I have a total of about 2 hours drive time every day - Audio books have been great, especially after work.

It has been a great way to decompress; I actually enjoy, to an extent, my commute since it allows some of the days tensions to dissipate and I get to listen to and finish about 2 books a month.