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I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

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Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#71

Post by dpkrjb »

woolion wrote: post #9

I think formats are better suited to express certain types of ideas than others ("the medium is the message"). Blogposts tend to be ideal to express fairly short, singular ideas. Books should develop an entire thought system and connect various ideas, which take much longer, both in producing and consuming. The range of what you can express is also much more expanded, since you need the person to be in the right stat…

The trap in hyperlink rich blogs is clicking every link the moment you come upon it and essentially depth first read your way through an idea.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#72

Post by sasha_fishter »

jackschultz wrote: post #68

I've made a change recently, where if there's a blog post, web article, magazine articles, or even watch a video, I need to take notes on it. Obsidian is great for that, where I can put a link in, and it pops out a page for me to write any thoughts that come to mind from it, even if it's a single sentence or two. It's a slight barrier, but makes the feeling of reading something much more worthwhile, and also is inter…

That's a good idea. I've seen Obsidian, but I'm taking notes on notepad, just to be sure I write it with hand. It's so hard for me because I was typing more than writing, so I kinda forget to write :). But I like your approach, notes are great because 5 minutes after reading something you forget almost all of it :)

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#73

Post by wellanyway »

a13o wrote: post #34

I stopped reading non-fiction books. Most of them have about a blog post worth of ideas, but the publisher had the author pad it out to X00 pages because that's what makes their business model make sense. I haven't fully sworn off blogs, but I will skim anything brought to my attention on Medium, a corporate site, or from search results. My default assumption for these is that I'm reading content marketing and not an…

> most information dense things these days. Followed by podcasts

Funny you should say that. I can't bring myself to listen to any because of all of the filler and gimmicks.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#74

Post by evanwise »

woolion wrote: post #9

I think formats are better suited to express certain types of ideas than others ("the medium is the message"). Blogposts tend to be ideal to express fairly short, singular ideas. Books should develop an entire thought system and connect various ideas, which take much longer, both in producing and consuming. The range of what you can express is also much more expanded, since you need the person to be in the right stat…

To be fair, sometimes a single idea is difficult enough that it deserves an entire book.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#75

Post by makeitdouble »

elias94 wrote: post #36

Books are curated content that has been reviewed by editors and are usually well written. Better if the books is printed by a relevant publishing company and even better if the book has been translated which usually means is relevant. Also there are so many books and so many topics to read that is impossible to get bored. Articles are easy to produce and publish, there's no review and often are just another way to do…

> Books are curated content that has been reviewed by editor

This is a very low bar. Lower than having a podcast fact checked on NPR or a research paper on peer reviewed publication.

Think business books, biographies, testimonies of popular events, self help and diet books. The bar to pass is not if it´s remotely true or helpful, it will be if it sells. Review and edition will be on the style and writing, not on content.

Sometimes the authorś name or the press campaign surrounding the book will be enough for it to sell, with very few people actually engaging with the book in its details.

There is a funny and absolutely _not_ reviewed podcast on this theme, openly biased and not to take too seriously, but going through widely popular books that are garbage under even the minimum scrutiny: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-books-could-kill/id...

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#76

Post by wintermutestwin »

a13o wrote: post #34

I stopped reading non-fiction books. Most of them have about a blog post worth of ideas, but the publisher had the author pad it out to X00 pages because that's what makes their business model make sense. I haven't fully sworn off blogs, but I will skim anything brought to my attention on Medium, a corporate site, or from search results. My default assumption for these is that I'm reading content marketing and not an…

>the publisher had the author pad it out to X00 pages because that's what makes their business model make sense.

I got a subscription to Blinkist this year and use these ~20min audio summaries to determine if I think it is worth slogging through the whole book for more detail. It rarely is with modern non-fiction. I read most non-fiction to absorb information and learn new ideas, not for the joy of reading - that's what fiction is for. Of course the genre of non-fiction book is usually indicative of how much it is full of blaa blaa anecdotes, etc. Blinkist is at its best when listening to self improvement for example.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#77

Post by topaz0 »

What you may notice from the other replies is that many of them conflict with each other. The reason is that this has much more to do with the rhythms of your own life and interests than with global trends. When I first started reading HN I would read several links a day. I don't think the quality of the links has changed that much -- indeed, many of the links are reruns that I've seen here 2, 5 or 10 years ago -- instead I have moved on to have more focused interests, and a higher level understanding in those areas, so that fewer of the posts are useful to me. (Meanwhile, I have much less time to read in general at my present stage of life, so I also read fewer books and magazines). I suspect there are also meaningful global trends, but extrapolating from your own experience will lead you astray.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#78

Post by agentwiggles »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #65
jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually read a lot LESS books than I used to. Fewer. - Stannis Baratheon (I’m not actually a grammar nazi, I just can’t resist the joke.)

I am still not over how spectacularly that TV series imploded into nothingness.

I just started House of the Dragon a few days ago. I was a huge ASOIAF fan and followed GoT pretty obsessively, so I was kind of surprised that I had basically no interest in House of the Dragon when it first came out.

I was talking to my wife about the show and had the (somewhat obvious in retrospect) realization that I was hesitant to watch HotD because of how horrible GoT mangled the story. The best seasons of Thrones were the seasons which closely followed the books - around season 5 the series really started to go off the rails. It was still fun to watch, but lost some of the initial magic as soon as it didn't have the books to use as a plot template. And by the time it made its way to the final two seasons, it was pretty clear that there was going to be no righting of the ship in the amount of time they had left.

Even with that being the case, it was absolutely impressive how badly they managed to flop the landing of the series. The last season was wildly disappointing to me. And in fact, I think the TV series poisoned my love of the books to some degree. I'm pretty skeptical that GRRM will ever finish and some of the plot points of the end of the TV series seem so wrongheaded to me that I'm not sure how George could ever land the books more successfully.

HotD has been entertaining enough so far, although a bit slow for my taste. We'll have to see how things shake out over the next few years, but at least now my expectations are pretty level.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#79

Post by gorjusborg »

a13o wrote: post #34

I stopped reading non-fiction books. Most of them have about a blog post worth of ideas, but the publisher had the author pad it out to X00 pages because that's what makes their business model make sense. I haven't fully sworn off blogs, but I will skim anything brought to my attention on Medium, a corporate site, or from search results. My default assumption for these is that I'm reading content marketing and not an…

> I stopped reading non-fiction books. Most of them have about a blog post worth of ideas

I feel like this is very true for topics that are extremely shallow, like programming language frameworks.

Otherwise, I find that a good non-fiction book has no equal when it comes to transferring a nuanced mindset or base understanding from the author to the audience.

A tutorial is nice for what it is, a way to quickly become a beginner. Books at their best can give you so much context around they how and why that is very difficult to build by scouring the web for short form content.

I do agree, though, that bad books are insidious time wasters. I've had to find ways to quickly identify if I'm reading one of those, and I apply that process any time I start a big book (I also tend to search out opinions on good books from others before I ever have the book in my hands).

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#80

Post by mcdonje »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #65
jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually read a lot LESS books than I used to. Fewer. - Stannis Baratheon (I’m not actually a grammar nazi, I just can’t resist the joke.)

I am still not over how spectacularly that TV series imploded into nothingness.

I don't get the hate for the ending. I think a lot of the criticisms missed the point. Everyone wanted a person who was consistently going mad over the course of the story to take the throne.
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