I know a simpler rule: Just have a look at my list of recommended nonfiction books: https://github.com/asmaier/littlelists/blob/master/books_non...
;-)
Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
191–200 of 205 posts
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#192I would argue that goodreads is not a particularly good way to determine whether a non-fiction book is worth reading. goodreads reviewers are just regular people who evaluate books based on how much they enjoyed them, not how accurate of useful the books are. If I'm looking for a book I want to learn from, I scout recommendations from journals, magazines, blogs, respected radio programs/podcasts. End of year "best of…
Although I haven't read Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine", Google categorizes it as Biography, so if you buy that then by the rule of thumb it would not be off limits. And thanks, I have added it to my to-read list!
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#193Interesting post, but i would say you can easily read more than 3000 books if you retire at 65 and live to be 90+. Also there are great non-fiction books by journalists that are not about journalism, a few that come to mind are Bad Blood, The Chickenshit Club, Angler, All The President's Men, books by Matt Taibbi, etc.
At least some of the books you mention arguably can be (and are by Google) classified as biography, so they would not be removed by the rule of thumb. But perhaps a better way of phrasing the rule would be "Don't read books by journalists on technical subject matter if your intention is gaining an understanding of that subject". If you want to read journalistic works like Bad Blood because it's a heck of a story, then that's a different matter. I am still failing to find a succinct way to express this thought though :)
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The idea that changed Hofstadter’s existence, as he has explained over the years, came to him on the road, on a break from graduate school in particle physics. Discouraged by the way his doctoral thesis was going at the University of Oregon, feeling “profoundly lost,” he decided in the summer of 1972 to pack his things into a car he called Quicksilver and drive eastward across the continent. Each night he pitched hi…
What is your point? When Hofstadter was 35, he had spent his adult life studying a subject which culminated in the publication of a book about it. He wasn't passively throwing words on pages to get anything published, he was publishing his life's work. You seem to be trying to argue that -- because he continued to live afterward, he somehow didn't spend his entire life on the book. But that's not what was being asser…
> When Hofstadter was 35, he had spent his adult life studying a subject
First, a nitpick - the book was published when he was 34, and he was even younger when he wrote it.
But the main point is that the post is clearly talking about people who have spent the entirety of a lifetime studying an area, not someone who has spent their adulthood so far studying the subject.
And Hofstadter clearly hadn't devoted the entirety of his adulthood up to age 34 studying the subjects of GEB. The quoted passage says that his formal study had been in particle physics.
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your point? When Hofstadter was 35, he had spent his adult life studying a subject which culminated in the publication of a book about it. He wasn't passively throwing words on pages to get anything published, he was publishing his life's work. You seem to be trying to argue that -- because he continued to live afterward, he somehow didn't spend his entire life on the book. But that's not what was being asser…
> When Hofstadter was 35, he had spent his adult life studying a subject First, a nitpick - the book was published when he was 34, and he was even younger when he wrote it. But the main point is that the post is clearly talking about people who have spent the entirety of a lifetime studying an area, not someone who has spent their adulthood so far studying the subject. And Hofstadter clearly hadn't devoted the entire…
I disagree with your assessment of what the main point is. I don't think anyone else is interpreting it that way, and can confidently assert that the error is entirely on your end.
Moreover, Hofstadter's study of physics isn't unrelated to his study of intelligence. I personally got a degree in physics to study language and intelligence, because the way physicists use language, analogy, and simple concepts to understand the world is particularly effective and interesting. So I can tell you first-hand that they are related. In fact, anyone who studies philosophy is probably making a serious mistake to not study physics first.
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
What book reporting on economics that wasn't written or co-written by an economist are you concerned is too influential or widely read? As we can obviously see, even professionals in medical sciences were wrong about Theranos. How did John Carreyrou, a WSJ reporter, do such a good job reporting on them?
Flash boys was pretty much one sided incorrect views about how HFTs work designed as an advertisement for a new exchange. It was highly read and picked up by armchair experts everywhere leading to lots of outrage against... not much in particular other than evil Wall Street people stealing muh money. The Big Short is in a similar category although it wasn’t really an ad so much as an excuse for everyone who overlever…
I don't like Flash Boys at all either. But it's not my argument that all books by journalists are good. Ninety percent of everything is crap.
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When Hofstadter was 35, he had spent his adult life studying a subject First, a nitpick - the book was published when he was 34, and he was even younger when he wrote it. But the main point is that the post is clearly talking about people who have spent the entirety of a lifetime studying an area, not someone who has spent their adulthood so far studying the subject. And Hofstadter clearly hadn't devoted the entire…
I disagree with your assessment of what the main point is. I don't think anyone else is interpreting it that way, and can confidently assert that the error is entirely on your end. Moreover, Hofstadter's study of physics isn't unrelated to his study of intelligence. I personally got a degree in physics to study language and intelligence, because the way physicists use language, analogy, and simple concepts to underst…
> I don't think anyone else is interpreting it that way, and can confidently assert that the error is entirely on your end.
The post is very clear that it's talking about expertise in the sense referred to in my comments (which, as also indicated in my comments, I don't fully agree with):
"Rule #1: Prefer books by experts in the field The best nonfiction books I have read have invariably been by folks who spent their lives researching that particular issue. A couple of books in this category immediately come to mind: Why We Sleep, The Language Instinct, Gödel Escher Bach.
Positive indicators of this in a blurb may include “Professor in [field directly related to the book’s topic]”, “Long-time researcher in [field directly related to the book’s topic]”.
Note how they say "Professor in" and "Long-time researcher in".
The way you're using a term, a 21 year old can have "spent their life researching the topic" if they've been focused on it over the previous three years.
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#198A simpler rule: Read what nobel prize winners read:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/03/steven-weinber...
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with your assessment of what the main point is. I don't think anyone else is interpreting it that way, and can confidently assert that the error is entirely on your end. Moreover, Hofstadter's study of physics isn't unrelated to his study of intelligence. I personally got a degree in physics to study language and intelligence, because the way physicists use language, analogy, and simple concepts to underst…
> I don't think anyone else is interpreting it that way, and can confidently assert that the error is entirely on your end. The post is very clear that it's talking about expertise in the sense referred to in my comments (which, as also indicated in my comments, I don't fully agree with): "Rule #1: Prefer books by experts in the field The best nonfiction books I have read have invariably been by folks who spent their…
You don't need to focus on these kinds of semantic quibbles if you want to miss the point. You can do that directly.
Albert Einstein was 21 when he published his first paper, and 26 when he published his best. Please tell me that he didn't spend his life researching physics, even then.
Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books
#200Here's what I do. If I get a book recommendation, I immediately buy it and put it on a bookshelf. Every time I walk by, I scan the shelf and pick what speaks to me at that given time: fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks, science, history, classics, short-story collections, biographies, etc. If you match your what you read to your mood and frame of mind, you can consume and retain information much more quickly and enjoyab…
> If I get a book recommendation, I immediately buy it and put it on a bookshelf.
That's fine if you can afford it ;-) Living on a student's budget, I limit myself to two new books a month, or sometimes three. But then I make sure I pick good books, and really try my very best to finish them. Doesn't always work, but it does mean that I've completely read ~90% of the books on my shelves. (Although I will often read books in parallel, switching as the mood strikes.)
I started my "two books a month" habit about three years ago and have found it a valuable habit to have. I've read some excellent books, learnt a ton (from widely different fields) - and there is a certain joy of anticipation in carefully selecting "this month's books".