Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

I've been using Goodreads.com, which is fantastic for a lot of things like book recommendations/discovery and reviews. It's easy to write a public review and to save private notes, and after my Kindle was stolen, I thought it might be useful for note-taking. However the private notes section is arbitrarily limited to a very small number of characters, which makes it useless to me as a note-taking tool. It's not much more difficult to use Evernote or whatever but I put enough effort into maintaining my shelves on Goodreads that it would be nice to have notes integrated.

For the time being, I'm back to paper. I miss my Kindle... I can see that it is still alive somewhere on my account, as I'll periodically email insulting messages that I can see are delivered on the Kindle control panel.

(IMHO this post adds very ltitle)

The poster is quite skeptical that books change us. I don't understand why because the truth is this (IMHO) is blatantly self-evident.

Even our machine learning models are capable of taking inputs and changing the internal structure creating or modifying the ability to make inferences. Why do you think our brains are any different?

When a conversation happens, at first you remember the exact words that were spoken. Soon you think you do but those details will change between different participants (they will in fact probably be different from the first moment for any non-trivial exchange). Then you're left with the gist of what was said and then later typically an emotion or association with a person, time, place or some other stimulus.

Books are no different. You may remember key quotes. After awhile you'll struggle to remember all but the broadest plot elements. Most often you'll remember that you liked or didn't like the book and often won't be able to quantify why (in any kind of specific way).

Reference books or books that teach you anything are more "obvious" in this regard. Read "Effective C++" or "Effective Java" and it'll essentially reprogram your brain (to varying degrees) by a change in habits, preferences, etc.

Fiction is harder to pin down. Sometimes it's pure entertainment. It may not necessarily change you. But there is something about human development that is particularly receptive to the meme of fiction. The greatest ability we evolved is the ability to teach our young significant skills such that one generation is building on the fruits of the last and we've all learned something beyond how to crack nuts open with rocks.

Fiction often has a moral. Books are capable of changing our behaviour and attitudes (although many don't).

All of this just seems so obviously analogous to reprogramming a computer (albeit an incredibly complex one) that it baffles me that people would think otherwise.

I find this comment slightly arrogant and condescending. By choosing not to read fiction the author deprives himself of experiencing not only "ephemeral delight", but also removes the possibility of deriving insight from many inspiring and thought-provoking works.

Not all raw 'brain food' needs come from non-fiction. This is one reason I like science-fiction - the better works combine fantasy with reality, and bridge the dream / conscious worlds in a way that very readily lends itself to new thoughts and ideas.

In addition, the mental escape provided by fiction can be soothing and healing to the pattern and structure-obsessed mind I - and likely number of HN people - have. Sci-fi and fantasy books are, for me, as alcohol or drugs are for others.