It would be interesting to see the list of actual books read.
Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
21–30 of 92 posts
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was student in french "classes preparatoires" (between 19 and 20yo), my binom was fond of books. He read between 2 and 3 books per day when most pupils had difficulties to cope with workload.
What does "binom" mean? Is that a typo? I tried looking it up online, but don't see anything.
It means someone you work with. A binôme in French is a group of 2
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#23I'd like to see some research on how much redundant and unnecessary information is in typical books. I have the feeling that the essence of most books can be simplified to the size of, say, an average blog post. Can't we make reading a lot more efficient than it is right now?
Lots of advice-like books are like this. I remember a co-worker who had suddenly become very taken with a certain financial management book series. He asked everybody around him to read them or listen to the audio book version. I finally relented to one of the audio books (I had a long commute so why not?). It was hour upon hour upon hour of clearly made up stories about made up people and chapter after chapter of what basically amounted to "to save money, spend less than you make".
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was student in french "classes preparatoires" (between 19 and 20yo), my binom was fond of books. He read between 2 and 3 books per day when most pupils had difficulties to cope with workload.
What does "binom" mean? Is that a typo? I tried looking it up online, but don't see anything.
See also this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_(polynomial)
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#25I'd like to see some research on how much redundant and unnecessary information is in typical books. I have the feeling that the essence of most books can be simplified to the size of, say, an average blog post. Can't we make reading a lot more efficient than it is right now?
Depends on what you mean by "typical." Do you think you could craft an average blog post to summarize the essence of something like Homer's "The Odyssey"?
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#26Interesting.
The first point resonates with the famous quote made by Bruce Lee.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times."
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#27> It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once. Rather than being an obvious truth, for me it is a grave mistake. I rarely read a book a few times (but also: I am very slow (careful!) reader), and go back if I want to quote something verbatim, or lookup a number/reference. In book reading I prefer quality than quantity. But what is crucial, rarely there…
For me, for a new field, I never know which is the "best" book. And whichever it is - it's not complete; there are additional nuggets to be found, maybe in the corner of a minor chapter, in many/most of them. I will read ~100 to just get a feel for the lay of the land. This is because I don't know what I don't know and certainly don't know enough to pick the best! And then go back and re-read (with more directedness) 10~20 of them, and then settle in and make 1~5 of them my touch stones for re-re-reading over time. This last bit is because I have a leaky brain, and I need to refresh it from time-to-time.
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#28I'd like to see some research on how much redundant and unnecessary information is in typical books. I have the feeling that the essence of most books can be simplified to the size of, say, an average blog post. Can't we make reading a lot more efficient than it is right now?
I agree that many non-fiction titles could be shorter (although probably not the length of a blog post).
I confess I am an impatient reader, and many non-fiction titles I read feel padded out with unnecessary verbiage. I do wonder if the tools we use to write have some bearing on this. When using a computer to write, the ease of editing means it's much easier to just write and write and write.
Imagine if you were forced to write your manuscript by hand. I'm guessing the length of your non-fiction manuscript would be shorter, sharper and more to the point.
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#29I'd like to see some research on how much redundant and unnecessary information is in typical books. I have the feeling that the essence of most books can be simplified to the size of, say, an average blog post. Can't we make reading a lot more efficient than it is right now?
I love your thought, and I tend to agree. There's way too much redundant and unnecessary information in typical books. That's why I think is better to read the best books on the topic more times, than few other average books repeating the same stuff in different words.
Fortunately - and this is something I see many smart people around me not realizing - we live in the day and age where it's trivial to identify and get the very best books humanity has produced about any given topic. That is, as long as you can read English.
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#30I decided to read a book a day this year. So far I'm ahead at 336 and here are my counter opinions. "* It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once." Flat out no. Unless you're a freaking machine. Reading different books covering the same topic keeps me interested more. I don't mind the repetition then because I get the warm "I know that" feeling. "* Ey…
Thanks for your comment Paul! Kudos for a book a day, just in my honest opinion, that's an overkill. I think it's really important to have time to think and make notes about what you read. Even re-reading the same books can often give you different insights, depending on your inner state, life circumstances, etc. I respect your opinion on your points, and I'll not argue those. I shared my insights, based on my experi…
The problem complicating re-reading "the best" book is how do you know which one is the best? Reading a new one has a non-zero chance of reading a better one. A variation on the secretary problem where interviewing can have a negative cost.
As for a book a day being overkill - you're right, I'm not going to keep this up next year. Normally I read ~80 books but last year I was unemployed for several months and ended up reading >200 even though I was busy looking for work (which involves a lot travel and waiting around which is when I got religious about using my deadtime rather than "killing" time with HN) and I thought fuck it, I'll give it a go at which point I got hired within a month but wanted to see if I can keep going. It's getting really busy with deadlines but I'm confident I can catch up during christmas. For people wondering: yes, I have no family.