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How To: Read more books

aaronsw.com

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Re: How To: Read more books

#51

Post by brezina »

Copying my comment that I posted on Aaron's blog:

One more simple lesson that I learned only in my early twenties.

You don’t need to finish every book.

This is a simple but powerful lesson. It reduces the mental burden of starting a new book to near zero. I’m now comfortable putting a book down 200 pages in. And that makes it much easier to start the next 600 page novel.

High school english classes teach us the wrong way to read books. It took me a long time to unlearn what I was taught.

Re: How To: Read more books

#52

Post by rdmcfee »

rdmcfee wrote: post #50

Beside the point of this article I'm amazed by the following: "The average person spends 1704 hours a year watching TV". From my understanding an average work year is around 2000 hours. If 'the average person' worked in an enjoyable environment that was as pleasant as watching television or reading a book they could easily almost double their input at the workplace by cutting out television. Whether that would double…

Also note that 1074 hours per year is just shy of 3 hours per day, seven days per week. Unbelievable!

Re: How To: Read more books

#53

Post by lhorie »

edw519 wrote: post #24

The biggest consumer of time is undoubtedly other people, in large measure because talking to other people is so fun that you don’t notice time going by. By keeping yourself away from other people (living alone is a good start), you free up an enormous amount of time for reading. I find this is particularly useful in reading books, since books can usually substitute for human company... How sad, especially coming fro…

Why is that sad? It reminds me of that extrovert vs introvert thing: some people prefer to spend time alone. Also, not all topics and hobbies are mainstream enough that you can easily share without people's eyes glazing over.

Re: How To: Read more books

#54

Post by kqr2 »

edw519 wrote: post #24

The biggest consumer of time is undoubtedly other people, in large measure because talking to other people is so fun that you don’t notice time going by. By keeping yourself away from other people (living alone is a good start), you free up an enormous amount of time for reading. I find this is particularly useful in reading books, since books can usually substitute for human company... How sad, especially coming fro…

As Paul Graham wrote:

Hanging out with friends is like chocolate cake. You enjoy it more if you eat it occasionally than if you eat nothing but chocolate cake for every meal. No matter how much you like chocolate cake, you'll be pretty queasy after the third meal of it.

http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

Re: How To: Read more books

#55

Post by azanar »

slig wrote: post #36
edw519 wrote: post #24

The biggest consumer of time is undoubtedly other people, in large measure because talking to other people is so fun that you don’t notice time going by. By keeping yourself away from other people (living alone is a good start), you free up an enormous amount of time for reading. I find this is particularly useful in reading books, since books can usually substitute for human company... How sad, especially coming fro…

I thought he was being sarcastic.

I suspect more deliberately exaggerated than sarcastic.

Many people tend to see deliberately introversion and aloneness as deliberate alienation. It's a cognitive leap that still confuses me; people assume a behavior that isolates the individual is out of spite for the social collective, even if the person carefully explains that they aren't doing this out of scorn but out of personal need or desire.

My suspicion is that aaronsw is just describing his relationship to those around him the same way they would describe it, but in more matter-of-fact terms. That he seems to have offended people so makes me think he touched a nerve, even if it did it tongue-in-cheek. My first reaction to this is to start reflecting on the social biases we have which would cause us to recoil in such disgust to the suggestion; are we being unreasonable in our expectations of the people around us?

Re: How To: Read more books

#56

Post by zzzmarcus »

I don't agree with some of Aaron's suggestions, but I enjoy reading and have thought about this some too. I have a FT job, a wife, a 7 yr old and a 7 mo old and I mangage to read 2-6 books a month. Here's what I do:

1. Audiobooks - I subscribe to Audible.com and get books audiobooks from library and occasionally Librivox. I listen on my 20 minute commute, while I exercise, and when I'm doing mundane tasks like the dishes or cleaning.

2. eBooks - I put the icons for Stanza and GoodReader on the homescreen of my iPhone. When I find myself about to tap a game or feed reader or YouTube or whatever I check myself and ask myself if I'm in a good state to read (e.g. awake enough, have more than 3 minutes). I don't feel like I'm denying myself the entertainment of another game of Doodle Jump as much as consciously encouraging myself to opt for something that I generally find to be more satisfying.

3. Books by the bed. Nothing new there. I sometimes squeeze in a little time to read real, paper books before bedtime or when I wake up.

I haven't turned down the thermostat, alienated people, ordered stacks of library books or blocked any blogs (though I have drastically reduced the number of blogs I subscribe to). In fact, I feel like my life is generally the same as it was before I started reading a lot, except for the value I've found in what I read.

If you're curious, here's what I've been reading: http://goodreads.com/zzzmarcus

Re: How To: Read more books

#57

Post by azanar »

lhorie wrote: post #53
edw519 wrote: post #24

The biggest consumer of time is undoubtedly other people, in large measure because talking to other people is so fun that you don’t notice time going by. By keeping yourself away from other people (living alone is a good start), you free up an enormous amount of time for reading. I find this is particularly useful in reading books, since books can usually substitute for human company... How sad, especially coming fro…

Why is that sad? It reminds me of that extrovert vs introvert thing: some people prefer to spend time alone. Also, not all topics and hobbies are mainstream enough that you can easily share without people's eyes glazing over.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-f...

Re: How To: Read more books

#58

Post by pavel_lishin »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #46
cglee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to love audiobooks, until I realized how much longer they took over reading. I prefer podcasts for drives, but even a lot of those aren't very focused and tend to banter.

I convert PDFs to audiobooks using an osx service and then i listen to them on 2x speed. i'm a slow reader, so it isnt a huge difference in time for me.

A text-to-speech converter sounds like an awful way read to listen to a book.

Re: How To: Read more books

#59

Post by electromagnetic »

barrkel wrote: post #48
edw519 wrote: post #24

The biggest consumer of time is undoubtedly other people, in large measure because talking to other people is so fun that you don’t notice time going by. By keeping yourself away from other people (living alone is a good start), you free up an enormous amount of time for reading. I find this is particularly useful in reading books, since books can usually substitute for human company... How sad, especially coming fro…

Aaron is pretty young and acts it. He often comes out with incredibly naive posts, especially on topics like the economy, or politics. But the counterpoint is that his reading (especially re history) sometimes means he comes out with counter-intuitive or enlightening stuff. Speaking for myself, I find other people a real energy drain. I don't live alone, but I feel delight and a deep sense of relaxation when I get th…

Some people have that draining effect on me, which is usually why I try to cut those people out of my life. Many people I know are fun and energizing, because they take life and themselves easy. However many of my ex-friends have been the self-centred and self-absorbed kinds that just make your dealings with them laborious.

I don't mean to be harsh or cold, but it's not my job to deal with someone elses problems day in day out. I purposely chose not to go into the psychology fields for that reason. I have my own problems, I have my own stresses, the reason I get together with friends is to forget the problems and relax.

I think it's a good guide in life to route out the sources of problems and stress in your social circles and remove them. I'm an introvert, perhaps not so much as others but I'm certainly not an extrovert by any measure, but with the right groups I can be going out almost nightly and I don't feel the usual drain.

Although I have to say, I will likely always look forward to two days alone.

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