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Ask HN: How Do You Read?

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Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#91

Post by djsumdog »

I read on my phone/tablet these days. I backpacked around for 11 months straight once and having physical books and keeping notes was difficult. I use to just buy books from Google/Amazon/B&N, but these days I'll usually just buy some merch from an author or support their podcast (if they have one) and pirate the book because I hate vendor lock-in.

I usually try to switch back and fourth between fiction and non-fiction. I'll read two or three fictional novels and then maybe some non-fiction. I'm not a huge fan of non-fiction. A lot of them they draw out a 100 page book into a 300 page extended essay because that's what publishers want to sell books at the current market prices. I'd rather they sell 150 page non-fiction if they could get the same point across. (Sam Harris brought this up when he self published the short book: Islam and the Future of Tolerance, which is on my list).

I think at one time I might have switched between two books throughout my reading, but today I usually read one all the way through.

I do want to read more. Here's what I finished last year:

Books 2018:

  Cibola Burn

  Nemesis Games

  The Dictator's Handbook

  The Mythical Man Month

  Ready Player One

  The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
and 2019 so far:

  The Fountainhead

  Wrinkle in Time

  The Men who Stare at Goats

  The Coddling of the American Mind

  Babylon's Ashes

  The Strange Death of Europe

  Persepolis Rising

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#92

Post by wcr3 »

bArray wrote: post #87

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…

same here. excellent description.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#94

Post by fak3gear »

I'm lucky enough that I've plenty of time to read at work so I don't know...I just read.

Always physical books, I've got a Kindle at home but it's just picking up dust. Most of the time I alternate between either a literary classic or some non-fiction, and then a more light read (more often than not a Michael Connelly novel).

Each time I start a new book I snap a picture of the cover and I have a Google Photos album where I compile them all to remember them and to be able to count how many I've read at the end of the year

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#95

Post by avip »

My prominent reading strategy is called (only by me I guess) skip and cut. I read the same way I listen to music - If something is boring I skip. If I skip too much I throw the book away for another.

I'm not claiming this methodology to be original, smart, useful or mature. It's just the answer to the posed question.

[E: also this seems a fair opportunity to quote my favorite author]

Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#96

Post by punnerud »

I read books to find out; what I don’t know, that I don’t know.

When I find these new things I use that a stepping stone for further investigation. After a while I totally switch area for a while.

It’s all about connecting the dots, and having a good time while doing it. For me this is also the way I remember it.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#97

Post by qorrect »

8ytecoder wrote: post #48
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…

One of the reasons I love the kindle. I highlight my favourite quotes and phrases regularly and then after I finish the book I summarise it into an essay. For instructional books I make a bullet point list of key learnings.

Wow this a game changer for me, did not know you could do this, thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#98

Post by dtroode »

I read on computer or phone. If it's literature for work, I need to practice and not only read. I read something and trying to do it, as a web developer. If it's other literature I read it on my phone, when I have free time. If I read literature for work it takes a lot of time to thinking and doing exercises (if they exists). Spending a lot of time or reading and practicing helps to remember information

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#99

Post by lallysingh »

3pt14159 wrote: post #41
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 lost my Commonplace Book with all my notes from my previous readings in a trip to a hospital. I'm still devastated even though I have a partial backup from photos I took before hand with my phone.

I'm sorry. I've found a Neo Smartpen (with tweaks) to help back up my notes.

Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?

#100

Post by philwelch »

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 feel like there's a bootstrapping issue here, though. What do I read in order to learn to read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler? Or do I merely read that book once, in order to learn the technique, before re-reading it?
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