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Ask HN: Are books worth it?

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Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#131

Post by ljm »

If I could suggest one thing, I would consider nuking your 1000-long list of 'must reads', and then find one book you really like the sound of. Find some good fiction that fits into a genre you enjoy; maybe even try graphic novels if superhero-style stuff is your thing.

Then, make it a habit to read out of enjoyment and not as an info gathering exercise, or reading for the sake of reading. Take the book to bed with you and read a few pages or a chapter before you doze off; read a few pages when you've got downtime instead of browsing the internet. At the end of the day, you're just choosing to enjoy reading from a different source.

But still, nuke the epic list from orbit. You'll likely never get around to all of them due to the overwhelming size of the backlog. Your personal must-reads will return to you again, if they're important enough to you. Meanwhile, you've just reduced the scope to enjoying just a few books rather than all of them.

If you still struggle, try audiobooks or readings of public domain works.

Two personal examples:

- I don't give two hoots about Lord of The Rings. I read some of the books but it just wasn't "me", so I stopped because it wasn't really speaking to me. I saw one of the films and similarly didn't care.

- I don't care about Star Wars and haven't watched any of it. Same reason; wasn't my thing.

Popular culture would ostracise me for not enjoying these two works, but popular culture doesn't dictate what I should and shouldn't spend my time enjoying. So, do yourself the same favour and try and find what you enjoy, and take it from there.

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#132

Post by pgcj_poster »

One benefit that books have over articles, reddit comments, youtube, etc. is that they're hard to write. Consequently, people who write books on a subject are usually very knowledgeable and invested in it, meaning that books are more likely to contain good information than other media.

Usually, when I hear an interesting idea online, the person relaying it got it from a book.

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#133

Post by revicon »

For me, I maxed out all the Sci-Fi movies and TV shows out there and wanted more and discovered early on that Sci-Fi books are 1000 times better than whats out there in movie land. My problem is I have a hard time keeping track of where I am in all the book series I've been reading as new books sometimes take a year or more to come out depending on the authors.

Here's a couple resources I recommend...

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF - Sci-fi book subreddit

https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/sci-fi - Sci-fi books on Goodreads

https://www.scifibooklove.com - My (small) sci-fi book review site

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#134

Post by guidoism »

vo2maxer wrote: post #122

From one of the best guides on reading a book: “....a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.” ― Mortimer J.…

And as one of your first books take a look at How to Read a Book. I've enjoyed my books much more since then. Especially since I got past my prejudice that made me feel like if I started a book I needed to finish it before trying another. These days I read many books concurrently. If I get bored or need to let my brain churn on an idea in the background I move onto a different book, usually a totally unrelated book.

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#135

Post by xur17 »

exegete wrote: post #120
habosa wrote: post #87

Yes. I have always loved books. I read about 30-40 a year, mostly fiction with a few non-fiction thrown in. Novels are the closest thing I know to a form of magic. A good author can completely encode an entire world full of people on 300 pages of black and white text. And when they do it well, it literally never expires. I read mostly books from the last 50 years but I think the best example of a book as magic is Don…

How do you decide which books to read?

I'd be curious to hear an answer for this as well. My goal this year is to just read something every day. No minimum amount of time, no specific books, just to read consistently.

My current approach is to keep a list of books that others recommend both online (hn, reddit, etc) and in person, and choose a book off the list as I finish each one based on what I'm currently interested in reading.

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#136

Post by stevebmark »

If you get information from Reddit you deserve your ignorance. Books are worth it, and more generally paid content will give you higher quality information than free content. Nutrition is one area highly susceptible to this paid/unpaid information imbalance. The best information from doctors is in books, not online. For example most people aren't even aware of the _idea_ that saturated fat and cholesterol are healthy (which we've known for 20 years) because they learn from the lowest common denominator (like Reddit).

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#138

Post by guidoism »

I wouldn't say that books are "infinitely" better. Online content can still be good and there are truckloads of books that are garbage. But in general it is easier to find really good books than really good online non-book content.

When I wanted to learn about something then I usually first go to Wikipedia. Which by the way is OMG such an amazing resource I wish I had as a kid.

Then I move on to online articles or website devoted to the subject. Then I usually start going through books.

But here's the thing. The value of a book might be mostly just be in the bibliography at the end. Unfortunately a lot of those books aren't at the bookstore, aren't at archive.org, aren't at the library. So I'm forced to use the inter-library-loan service through the library. Which by the way is an awesome service that I just started using.

And you know what? A lot of those books are treasures.

So, no, not everything that's worth it is available online or ever at your book store.

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#139

Post by viscanti »

oneplane wrote: post #85

Online content is often low-quality, highly commercial in nature and very ephemeral. Books, the real kind, when they are good can stay with you for a very long time. A well-written story, be it fiction or non-fiction can have a long lastig impact and even an emotional connection that I have personally never experienced with anything 'online'. If you don't read books, you are missing out. Even only 1 or 2 books a year…

> Online content is often low-quality, highly commercial in nature and very ephemeral.

One question I ask myself when consuming online content is "would I pay any money for this". Generally the answer is no, the quality isn't there where I'd pay even a small amount of money. If I ask that same question with some high quality books the answer is that I would pay for it.

I'm not taking a stand on if people should pay for content or not, but it's a useful rule of thumb for me. If the quality of content is so low that I'd never pay for it, I try to cut that content out and replace it with higher quality content (even if that means I actually do pay for it).

Re: Ask HN: Are books worth it?

#140

Post by guidoism »

Also, audiobooks are an excellent way to get into reading books, especially for fiction and especially those with awesome narration. Don't let anyone tell you that listening to a book isn't reading it.
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