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The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

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Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#71

Post by frockington1 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #35
dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

Is reading good for you because other forms of entertainment have gotten worse? I suspect reading is so great because time spent reading is not time spent toiling away on social media or other shallow distractions. The same reason tea is good for you simply because it's not soda. Or do successful people tend to read because successful people don't tend to get dragged into shallow activities. The reading didn't make t…

I suspect that people who disdain reading for pleasure have never tried it as an adult. In every book there is a unique perspective and story that you can learn from. As an example, I recently read the Wheel of Time series because I like fantasy novels. Post-reading, I have a greater understanding of personal growth and how people change over time due to life experiences. It wasn't a nirvana state that was reached, but it gave me a unique perspective of people in various scenarios, many relatable to the real world.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#72

Post by martin-adams »

ohduran wrote: post #27

I have a contrarian view about reading productively, which is: READ WHAT OTHERS AREN'T READING. It's as if there is a similar process as the Efficient Market Hypothesis happening with books: the best-sellers define our shared reality, and apparently (at least for me), they aren't worth reading. For example, think of Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell. Virtually everyone has heard of the 10'000 hour rule. That means that th…

I think you're right when it comes to finding new and original ideas by reading less popular texts. This helps you get an alternative perspective than the mainstream. I do feel it depends on whether you're reading to address something personal, or reading for advancing the subject as a whole. If I'm struggling with habits, then Atomic Habits is a good book to read, even if everyone else is reading it. It's not the only one, but a good recommendation saves me time.

I remember one person in the HN comments a while ago say that they would rather than see a list of all the books someone recommends, they want to see the list of books they don't recommend. You can make a better assessment of whether this person has value to add by showing their exclusions in their line of thinking.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#73

Post by dawg- »

jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #67
j7ake wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst is some arbitrary goal of reading X books per year. That clearly optimises for short, easy to read books (eg New York Times Best Sellers) and avoids more technical and difficult books (eg Art of Computer Programming)

Setting a goal, even if arbitrary, is positive if an increased in the measured activity is positive. I think we'll all agree that, in most cases, reading more is a positive outcome. Instead of "read X books" think "run Y miles", do you still feel it's "the worst"? > That clearly optimises for short, easy to read books (eg New York Times Best Sellers) and avoids more technical and difficult books (eg Art of Computer P…

>Even if you cheat, is reading 15 short, bad books better or worse than reading 0?

If it's done as a chore to hit a certain number, or in a performative spirit to show others how much one has read, I think that person would get more value spending those hours doing something in which they have an authentic interest.

Also, it's not an all-or-nothing prospect. A better question might be, "Is it better to read 15 short, bad books or 3 longer, more challenging books that one may not even fully understand on the first reading?"

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#74

Post by tines »

dawg- wrote: post #44
tines wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ultimately you could learn just as much about yourself and the world by doing pottery, woodworking, kayaking, knitting or whatever else you like to do with your spare time. I agree with the rest of your post, but this sentence is a hard disagree. Books let you live a version of the lives of other more intelligent people from almost any point in history. How can pottery and kayaking do that?

> Books let you live a version of the lives of other more intelligent people from almost any point in history. How can pottery and kayaking do that? I do agree with your statement about books, because I personally love reading. Henry David Thoreau wrote a chapter of Walden called "Reading", and put it way better than I ever could: > "To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and…

Sure, I'm not saying that other activities don't have value, I was commenting only on your phrase "just as much." George Martin wrote, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, and the one who doesn't read, lives just one." Whether that is valuable or not is, as you say, debatable, but it's certainly not possible any other way.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#75

Post by Balgair »

dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

One thing about reading is the ROI aspect.

Internet comments take ~5 minutes to write, 30s to read (6x ROI).

Blog posts are ~4 hours to write, 10m to read (24x).

Magazine articles are ~3 months to write, 30m to read (960x).

Books are ~5 years to write, 8h to read (1300x).

Obviously, books are one of the best reading ROIs. Now, of course, you've got to balance the book quality, your interests, the thesis, the author's biases, etc. But as a rule of thumb, books are good investments of time. I think that's why they are this 'rare alchemy'. It's not that you unlock cheat codes to life, it's that they offer some of the best kismet to doing so.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#76

Post by misiti3780 »

j7ake wrote: post #37
dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

The worst is some arbitrary goal of reading X books per year. That clearly optimises for short, easy to read books (eg New York Times Best Sellers) and avoids more technical and difficult books (eg Art of Computer Programming)

I agree. I used to try to read X books a year, participate in Goodreads year in books, etc. This year I decided to stop consuming 90% of news and 99% of social media (mostly instagram) and try to read at least one 800+ page book per month (usually historical biographies).

After reading two of these larger books in 2021, I feel like (and this is nothing new or profound) that concentration really is a lost art and it just takes practice. I also feel like these large books probably help with retaining info because you spend so much time in them, being inculcated on the subject. It's kinda like a giant monthly experiment in SRS.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#77

Post by jodrellblank »

dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

Have employer/employee relationships always been so squeezed, so antagonistic, that the aspirational message included "living off dividends from your stonks" and "leanFIRE" because the only thing worth aspiring to is getting out from wage slavery? It can't be a healthy economy when so much of the public discussion is how unpleasant work is, and not because the work itself is bad, but because the management/expectations/timekeeping/etc. is?

Medical staff, obviously in COVID times, basically any retail worker, basically any callcenter worker, anyone in an Enterprise company as per the film Office Space, people working anything from agriculture to factory work to Amazon warehouses, to delivery drivers timed for the amount of seconds they can step out of the van at each stop, to developers hating on unreasonable expectations of delivery time and price, to takeovers and downsizing leaving fewer people with more work, to individual craftspeople expected to compete on price with mass manufacture, to ridiculous job hopping advice (change jobs every 18 months, never don't be applying for jobs!) to decreases in loyalty and trust.

The aspirational messages have shifted from "thank God you have food for the day" to "own a home" to "get a stable job" to "a gold watch for long service and a pension" to "flip houses for money or rental income" to "desperately try to get rich quick and get out". And then what else is there but escapism with Lamborghinis and stories?

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#78

Post by blondin »

dawg- wrote: post #26

I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, a…

oh you don't say! same goes for writing.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#79

Post by dawg- »

tines wrote: post #74
dawg- wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Books let you live a version of the lives of other more intelligent people from almost any point in history. How can pottery and kayaking do that? I do agree with your statement about books, because I personally love reading. Henry David Thoreau wrote a chapter of Walden called "Reading", and put it way better than I ever could: > "To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and…

Sure, I'm not saying that other activities don't have value, I was commenting only on your phrase "just as much." George Martin wrote, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, and the one who doesn't read, lives just one." Whether that is valuable or not is, as you say, debatable, but it's certainly not possible any other way.

Just to be clear, I agree with you 100% that accessing other people's best thoughts through reading is very valuable and very awesome.

On the other hand, you don't need a thousand other lives to live one good one. As Thoreau wrote, "It takes more than one day to extract the wealth of a day." And as a Buddhist saying goes, "You can learn everything about the entire universe from the head of a pin".

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#80

Post by tines »

dawg- wrote: post #79
tines wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'm not saying that other activities don't have value, I was commenting only on your phrase "just as much." George Martin wrote, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, and the one who doesn't read, lives just one." Whether that is valuable or not is, as you say, debatable, but it's certainly not possible any other way.

Just to be clear, I agree with you 100% that accessing other people's best thoughts through reading is very valuable and very awesome. On the other hand, you don't need a thousand other lives to live one good one. As Thoreau wrote, "It takes more than one day to extract the wealth of a day." And as a Buddhist saying goes, "You can learn everything about the entire universe from the head of a pin".

> You can learn everything about the entire universe from the head of a pin

This is just not true haha.

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