“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” - George R.R. Martin quotes
"and my characters only live halves"
Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
51–60 of 92 posts
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#52This person is either reading the lightest self-help type of books, or not really "reading" these books. I'm an academic, and my only job is to read books (and articles, etc), and I do my job at least 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I don't even read this many books. My advice for getting genuinely intelligent about a topic: read hard books, intensively, and leave the buffet-stats-counter stuff to those who just w…
After reading ~10 different authors on self-help, you realize they're all saying the same thing. So no, your assumption is not true. Yes, I did read a lot of light self-help books in the beginning, but their number in total is less than ~40. It's totally not important how many books you read, but their quality, we agree about that :) That's why I mentioned it's better to read more times the same book, than more books…
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Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#53I'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?
Somewhere around age 27 I wanted the same thing. I think the answer is no, for two reasons. First, we already have blogs and newspapers. More importantly, the same material is interpretable in many ways. For example if you ask someone what is the main point of Orwell's 1984, you will usually hear something about surveillance. But to me, reading it as an adult, far more important is the idea that we need war as an out…
The war isn't primarily an outlet for economic surplus in 1984, it serves as a justification for repression, labelling dissent as sabotage, rationing (in a way that preserves the best for loyal party members), and the normalisation of violence. See also the "two minute hate".
There are a lot of takeaways from Orwell's book, basically on how "Stalinism with English characteristics" might look, extrapolating from Orwell's encounters with actual Stalinists in Spain. Orwell is pretty much required reading for anyone who wants to be on the sensible left. But a need for war is not one of them.
(Brave New World has leisure industry as an explicit sink for surplus, though).
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#54I 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…
That sounds impossible to me. How can you possibly read one book every day, unless they're extremely short? I could imagine this being true if you dedicate something like 8-12 hours per day, but how do you have time for that?
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#55“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” - George R.R. Martin quotes
G.R.R.M. writes well, and I'm a long-time paying customer, but that phrase is advertising bullshit.
The reader doesn't 'live' squat, he reads about someone else's life. Watching cooking shows doesn't feed anyone.
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#56Great. You learn a lot after reading books good work.
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#57imho usually the best books, are those complex ones, which I read for 4 months. Because after every page, 15 new questions arise, where settling them takes time, and then internalization of that wisdom takes time as well. And I don't even mention, that best books get better after re-reading.
In this light, 300 books in 4 years, seems quite a lot...
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#58I'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 for…
From what I've heard, it's more of a market pressure.
Imagine you wrote a typical 250 page non-fiction book that is padded out in the typical way. Just before publishing, you get fed up and edit it down to just 50 pages that convey everything without any fluff. Your publisher will tell you you're nuts and insist on publishing the 250 page version. Why?
Imagine you are shopping for a book on a topic. You find 6 such books in the store. 5 are the typical 200-300 page pieces. One 50 pages. They all cost the same. You don't have time or patience to investigate their relative quality. Do you A: assume the 50 page book is a low-effort blog series repackaged in print. Or, B: bet that the 50 page version is a high-effort careful edit? Most people choose A and I'd bet they are almost always correct in current practice.
Tldr: Short books look cheap. Customers assume they are ripoffs and don't buy them.
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#59“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” - George R.R. Martin quotes
And authors that embark on ambitious fantasy or Sci-fi series often die before completing them...
Hopefully he doesn't go the way of Robert Jordan or Frank Herbert.
Re: Lessons learned after 300 books in 4 years
#60imho usually the best books, are those complex ones, which I read for 4 months. Because after every page, 15 new questions arise, where settling them takes time, and then internalization of that wisdom takes time as well. And I don't even mention, that best books get better after re-reading. In this light, 300 books in 4 years, seems quite a lot...
This is very true for some types of books. For example, I am not able to read Dostoyevsky or Carlyle fast. For some sort of books, I even feel like I need a nap after 30 mins of reading, as I feel that my brain gets tired :)