31–40 of 407 posts
My recommendation is that you start with a physical book and not an ebook or audio book. It might test your attention span at first, but it’s the best way to get your focus back and you’ll find that your reading speed and comprehension will start to improve. Also, it’s nice not having to charge them ;)
I'm a photography enthusiast and hardcopy photography books is A must. Period. I mean books that display the works of the photographers. Sure you can find some of them on Flickr, Instagram, etc. But to study the complete work, gotta buy the books. For the rest, I'm fine with digital books. Take no physical space, can be easily read on phone/tablets. To sum it up: for me, yes they are worth.
Regarding the photography books, how does a complete digital archive of a photographer's works compare to a physical book of the same content? Would you still prefer the physical book in that scenario?
I try to filter out anything published in the past 5-10 years. There are definitely fad books.
Some books people talk around but don’t cite because they are so famous, like taking about Marxism instead of Das Capital or Darwinism instead of the Origin of Species. It is often worth reading the books that shook the world in your lifetime.
Took me 2 years of experience to realise what low quality materials I had been using. Number of youtube views is ZERO indicator of quality. I had been mislead and held back in ways I simply couldn't understand at the time.
Doing my oracle java cert and learning the book that goes with made me competent.
I believe that the difference between sitting down and reading a book for an hour vs. browsing the internet is _exactly_ what makes books so valuable. You're right, books are a lot of effort. However, they teach something that internet articles & videos don't, and that is delayed gratification. In the digital age, everything is fighting for your attention and it is getting harder and harder to actually focus on anyth…
Another book related to this that blew my mind already in the introduction is “American Nations”. (Actually haven’t finished the book - the main thesis is explained in detail in the introduction, all latter chapters just go into more depth to a point I’m not as interested in.)
Even then, reading fast does not help if you are failing to grasp what the concept and story is on about. Hence, I read slowly to understand what the piece is talking about to make my effort and time worth it.
My only motivation to attempt to read book is the author's put a lot of time and effort writing a book and getting it published. Therefore, the time spent writing a book with numerous references used to write the book, you are indirectly reading multiple books - accumulating ideas and knowledge from all those books.
The book which I am currently reading is "Why Nation Fail", the number of references used to write the book was what made me buy it.
I have noticed in the past 10 years online content has become very click-baited and regurgitated. Sites are designed to steal your attention with information coming as a secondary concern. Books, for the most part, avoid these issues. On average they are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books! With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they r…
I agree on all points. I want to expand on two. > On average [books] are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books! Along the same lines, the time and mental investment required to read a book, for me, produces a unique kind of immersive return. For example, I’m currently reading John Dos Passos’ USA trilogy. It is 1000+ pages of fiction about 1900-1930 America,…
My non-fiction reading list for the past year has been filled almost exclusively with titles plucked from HN comments. I don't consider any of them "must reads." They're all "want reads." All of them were suggested by HN posters with explanations as for why that book is the one to read on the subject; often followed by comments comparing that book to other books on the subject.
Each book I chose to read was read either because the subject interested me, or because the poster had shown that the book had changed how they viewed the world. If you don't know where to start out of the 1000 books, just start. Find one that interests you and read it. Maybe 1000 years from now we'll have AI that can recommend the perfect course of books for you to read, but for now, it isn't nearly as important to pick 'the perfect one' from the list as it is to just start reading it. And if you don't think it has value, put it down and pick up the next one.