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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

#161

Post by a13o »

Veen wrote: post #92
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…

There are crappy books, and there are excellent books. I find that business and self-books in particular match your description, and sometimes popular science books. But not well-regarded histories and biographies.

I don't read history or biographies so it's definitely a blind spot in my non-fiction claims

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

#162

Post by xiphias2 »

mongol wrote: post #131
xiphias2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love to see presentations of people on youtube who write non-fiction books. It gives back their personality as well and it's a great middle ground between articles and books.

Searching for "topic + lecture" on Youtube gives me the best hits. I rather hear a knowledgable person just talk about a topic, than some poorly animated storytelling about the same thing, done by a Youtuber with shallow knowledge

That's probably great as well, but I'm talking about searching for a book author.

Just for example Clean Code is a great book, but the presentation is so much better:

https://youtu.be/7EmboKQH8lM

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

#164

Post by sasha_fishter »

xtracto wrote: post #140
wintermutestwin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 w…

I've found that ChatGPT makes outstanding summaries of famous self-help/non-fiction books. Particularly if you ask it to give you a 100 word summary of each chapter.

Many people write in this thread about summaries, but in my opinion, the book is more than that. What I'm searching in a book, besides relaxing and other stuff, is ideas. I always find interesting that most boring part of the a book introduce some great ideas, or advices. Like when you expect it at least, they appears - like finding your better half. If you try to search for a one, the chances are that you won't find one. They appears in some random hidden places. That's how I see books. There's always something hidden where you don't expect it. Also I read a book from cover to cover, for the reason I explained before.

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

#165

Post by yogthos »

I find that I read both. Web articles can be useful for keeping up with recent news or tech developments. However, books are excellent for doing a deep dive into a subject. I started to reserve at least an hour for book reading every day, and now it's become a habit.

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

#166

Post by itake »

runjake wrote: post #125

I feel the opposite. I'm reading fewer non-fiction books and more articles and blog posts. Non-fiction books are bloated with fluff to increase the page count to increase the perceived marketability of the book. A lot of the ideas presented in those books could be adequately presented in a 10th of the number of pages. A huge time-saver has been reading the article versions of stuff that has been turned into a book. Y…

While I agree books have bloat, spending 4 minutes to read a blog article once makes it more difficult for me to retain the information. Books typically discuss ideas (over multiple days of reading) which helps me retain their information better.

Do you have any advice on how to retain blog posts better? Re-read them everyday for a few days?

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

#167

Post by mr_gibbins »

Do you think it's something to do with the medium, rather than the content?

I am an avid book-collector and much prefer to pick up a technical manual and find guidance there, but at the same time my job demands fluency with online documentation, plus e.g. Stack Overflow, blog posts, etc.

Personally I like the dead-tree feel and heft of a book, and the fact it doesn't require a screen or battery. I can curl up with it and I don't have a bright square of light blasting into my retinas. I could annotate it (criminal!) if I wanted to, or certainly bookmark it. It has the same features as online material in that regard.

I tried the Amazon Fire(?) reader-thingy for fiction books and couldn't get on with it at all, despite the paper feel/look.

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

#168

Post by padobson »

sibeliuss wrote: post #144

For me its easy: Sitting on the computer reading makes me feel depressed. Reading books makes me feel happy. And so I've gradually reduced my footprint on the internet to basically zero -- no social media, only a few sites (mostly HN) bookmarked -- in an effort to make the internet less of a thing. It's working. Sometimes I'm staring at my screen and I have no clue what to even do or where to go, and I close it and t…

+1 for getting away from the screen. I've stopped buying eBooks for exactly this reason. A glass of wine or bourbon and a book with a soft lamp is a much better way to power down at the end of the day then doom scrolling or vegetating to Netflix.

It is a lonely thing though, so YMMV when considering your spouse or roommates.

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

#169

Post by Sakos »

runjake wrote: post #125

I feel the opposite. I'm reading fewer non-fiction books and more articles and blog posts. Non-fiction books are bloated with fluff to increase the page count to increase the perceived marketability of the book. A lot of the ideas presented in those books could be adequately presented in a 10th of the number of pages. A huge time-saver has been reading the article versions of stuff that has been turned into a book. Y…

I consume information in whatever information it's available and whatever way I prefer at any given time. Even a Twitter thread can be a valuable source of information. I'm not going to ignore it just because it's Twitter. Some things I'm only able to find in books. Other things are great as articles because you don't need a book to explain a single concept. Even a book is just a whole made of chapters and indices and some chapters are more useful than others. I haven't read a non-fiction book cover-to-cover in years (or ever?). Sometimes a Reddit post is valuable because of all the information in the comments (eg. "the real TIL is always in the comments"). Sometimes I'll read a handful of notes from somebody's knowledge database and that's all I need. Sometimes I'll read all of them.

I can't imagine limiting myself to a single type of textual presentation.

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

#170

Post by locofocos »

cryptos wrote: post #145
runjake wrote: post #125

I feel the opposite. I'm reading fewer non-fiction books and more articles and blog posts. Non-fiction books are bloated with fluff to increase the page count to increase the perceived marketability of the book. A lot of the ideas presented in those books could be adequately presented in a 10th of the number of pages. A huge time-saver has been reading the article versions of stuff that has been turned into a book. Y…

A good example for such a bloated book is "Clean Architecture" by Robert C. Martin. The ideas of the book are more or less completely explained in a single blog post or one of his talks (about 1 hour), but the book has a few hundred pages (432) where he delves into history and talks to you about how he used archaic computers 40 years ago (to render himself as a veteran and to underline some point in the main text). A…

Is this a good example of one of those talks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dKZ-dWaCiU&ab_channel=ITkon...
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