Ask HN: How Do You Read? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#81

Post by codetrotter » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:08 PM UTC

guidoism wrote: post #16

Great question! In my fourth decade of life I’m finally figuring out the optimal way to do this myself. I’ve forgotten so so many books over the years that I supposedly read. Read How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer Adler. ( https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/... ) I’ve given this book to a bunch of people on my teams as it also helps with communicating id…

I’ve been thinking about something along these lines. One example might be that the book contains a lot of information that you already know. In that case, skimming through might tell you which chapters or sections to skip, instead of having to read lots of stuff that you already know, or worse yet, get discouraged by the repetition of things known to you and never finishing the book, thus missing out on the good stuff that was “hidden” in the later parts of the book.

But as of yet I tend to read books cover to cover and either finish them or give up on them along the way. But I do take notes about interesting things, and sometimes I do little experiments with them also. My notes are a bit lazy in that often my notes consist of taking a picture with my phone, but I categorize the photos into certain albums.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#82

Post by roland35 » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

I check out e-books from my library using overdrive and my Kindle. Some months I read no books, some months I read a few! I find it is good to occasionally have a wait between books, it keeps me reading at a steady pace so I have time to think about each book.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#83

Post by klingonopera » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

marktangotango wrote: post #62

mattlondon wrote: post #49

Interesting... Lots of people seem to read a lot of books - I get lots of recommendations from people at work and stuff. People talk about reading a book a week or whatever. I've never enjoyed reading books - right from childhood up to now. I try to avoid it. I have gifts from birthdays and christmases from years ago where the book sits entirely unread on the shelf for a year or two until I give it away once the guil…

The way I look at reading is if you don’t read then you will only ever be exposed to ideas that people around you choose to share, and you’ll never hear or learn anything at a greater level than the smartest person in your local area. But reading and books opens the world of ideas and knowledge to anyone. Nowadays, post internet and www, when information is abundant, reading long form books isn’t the advantage it use…

Fifty years ago, I may have agreed that books are invaluable, precisely because of the information contained within.

But ever since the Internet became a thing, and almost universally became the main source of information for everybody, I often feel like many people are holding on to books because they're not willing to let go.

...a case of false attribution in regards to format vs. content, if there's such a thing.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#84

Post by guidoism » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:10 PM UTC

guidoism wrote: post #16

Great question! In my fourth decade of life I’m finally figuring out the optimal way to do this myself. I’ve forgotten so so many books over the years that I supposedly read. Read How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer Adler. ( https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/... ) I’ve given this book to a bunch of people on my teams as it also helps with communicating id…

Somebody wrote "Not to sound rude, but how can one judge what idea one needs to see as 'important' while skimming through the book if they have no clue of what the book is about?" and then deleted it. I'd still like to reply because it's a good question. Here goes...

That's a perfectly good question. I used to think that skimming was worthless, only something that people who didn't actually care about information did.

But if you think about how you are constantly judging the value of information everywhere throughout the entire day then you can see how we have to make some filtering decisions.

Systematic skimming is just another filter. If I'm going to dedicate 10 hours to reading the book carefully it makes sense to get an overview of the ground first. If the books I'm reading are from Alan Kay's list of greatest books you should read then I'm going to not worry so much about the filtering aspect of the skimming. If it's a shitty book with a catchy title in the business books section of the library I'm going to be much more skeptical and the filtering part of skimming is essential to not wasting time on crap.

Judge a book by its cover. Then judge it by its table of contents. Then judge it by some passages you read that looked interesting. Don't commit to a book until you've gotten a better feel for what's inside.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#85

Post by stevenking » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:11 PM UTC

One word at a time.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#86

Post by guidoism » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

klingonopera wrote: post #83

marktangotango wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I look at reading is if you don’t read then you will only ever be exposed to ideas that people around you choose to share, and you’ll never hear or learn anything at a greater level than the smartest person in your local area. But reading and books opens the world of ideas and knowledge to anyone. Nowadays, post internet and www, when information is abundant, reading long form books isn’t the advantage it use…

Fifty years ago, I may have agreed that books are invaluable, precisely because of the information contained within. But ever since the Internet became a thing, and almost universally became the main source of information for everybody, I often feel like many people are holding on to books because they're not willing to let go. ...a case of false attribution in regards to format vs. content, if there's such a thing.

Oh man I totally agree. It's a fetish for dead tree books. And to be perfectly honest I have the fetish, but I recognize that it's just a fetish. It irks me to no end that the whole education system keeps on pounding this idea into our heads (parent's heads) that they need to limit screen time because only physical books are important for education. Physical books are awesome but they will dwindle in popularity as our reading tech gets better.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#87

Post by bArray » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

Personally I think the most important part of reading is picking up the general idea being conveyed, not to be able to precisely recall an idea. Like a support vector machine (SVM), I think your brain mostly retains information about model defying events. Most people won't remember what they had for a meal a month ago, because the event likely had little surprise - but you'll probably remember the meal that gave you food poisoning.

For example, I've read thousands upon thousands of papers, I generally accept that I cannot recall all the information in them. What I can do on the other hand is figure out exactly what I need to search for in order to find information on a topic and the re-learning time is greatly reduced.

This general acceptance of not being able to recall precise information about any given topic mostly came from my time in school as a child, where I realized the teachers were not so much teaching us topics for the real world, but giving us the framework to learn any topic.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#88

Post by klingonopera » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

guidoism wrote: post #86

klingonopera wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifty years ago, I may have agreed that books are invaluable, precisely because of the information contained within. But ever since the Internet became a thing, and almost universally became the main source of information for everybody, I often feel like many people are holding on to books because they're not willing to let go. ...a case of false attribution in regards to format vs. content, if there's such a thing.

Oh man I totally agree. It's a fetish for dead tree books. And to be perfectly honest I have the fetish, but I recognize that it's just a fetish. It irks me to no end that the whole education system keeps on pounding this idea into our heads (parent's heads) that they need to limit screen time because only physical books are important for education. Physical books are awesome but they will dwindle in popularity as ou…

...and the earlier we discard books from mainstream society, the quicker it will gain its place and appreciation as a "fetish", as you describe it ;)

I believe dead-tree books would rather profit from such a change than suffer from it.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#89

Post by yellowapple » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

On the rare occasion I do sit down and read a book (I usually don't, since I'm dreadfully slow at it), I've felt the second or third read to have a far more lasting impression on me than the first; more of what I read actually feels like it "sticks". This works best when I give myself ample time between reads (on the scale of months or years).

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#90

Post by dontbenebby » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

I get a big stack of books from the library and pick one at night. I try to avoid anything technical and have been trying to read more fiction. I usually get way more than I will read to give myself choices - after all, it's free either way. I have a plain .txt I write down things I might want to check out in.

So much of my life is planned and optimized, it's nice to be analog for a bit.