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How to read more books

scotto.me

71–80 of 310 posts

Re: How to read more books

#71
I've read 31 novels since January, far more than I'd read in the last 30 years.

Easy: I read 50 pages every night when I go to bed, instead of screens.

I started with short novels, 150 pages or fewer (chatgpt gave me a reading list).

It quickly became a habit, and it's lovely.

Re: How to read more books

#73

I adore my XTEink 4 with the crosspoint firmware. Best small form factor ereader

been thinking about buying one, but the whole debacle with locking down the fw put me off for a bit.

they have a partnership with crosspoint now i think its fine now

Re: How to read more books

#74
Get a long book, a timeless classic, and read one chapter a night.

I grew up reading all the time. About 20 years ago, I found myself reading less and less. I decided to read "The Count of Monte Cristo" again. I decided I would read one chapter a night, before going to bed, regardless of how late it was, how busy, etc, By the time I finished, reading before going to bed was a habit. I read 30-60 minutes every night before going to bed. (Read plenty of other times, too; but, no matter how the day has been, I read ever night.)

Re: How to read more books

#75

Love this blog, appreciate the author. > This is probably the most difficult part. I had to remove all social media and streaming apps from my iPhone. I removed Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. When I started, I found myself picking up the phone and immediately noticing that something was missing, since the only things left to do were check the weather, read boring emails, or see my bank account. These past few mon…

For me, as an avid reader of non-fiction books, for learning, i'm starting to question the value of reading them, compared to a good in-depth discussion with an LLM about a subject, together with reading academic papers and long articles/blog posts.

Re: How to read more books

#77
post #19

> First of all, you don’t have to make time to read. What you need to do is read every single time you are not doing something else. Mmh I’m not sure about that. I prefer to read for 1-2 hours rather than read 2 minutes here and 5 minutes there, especially for books that require some concentration to read, like dense stories and/or books not in my native language.

If squirrels drank coffee and could read, I imagine they'd read like the author. It sounds horrible to me, but everyone is different I guess.

Re: How to read more books

#78
post #52

I have an almost-four year old child and not a lot of downtime. I used to listen to podcasts when I was doing dishes, cleaning the house, walking the dog, etc. I've mostly abandoned podcasts in favor of audiobooks. It didn't feel like they were benefiting me in any meaningful way—almost like they were just empty calories for my ears. I finally made it all the way through The Power Broker recently, which I've wanted t…

Audiobooks are just a different medium. I don't think people should pretend that an audiobook is a book. You process the two in completely different ways. This doesn't imply one is better than the other either. For me I don't like audiobooks because its very slow and spoken stories should have a different cadence, velocity, set of dynamics, and diction than a book should (check out "the moth" to see what I'm talking…

Audiobooks are heavily dependent on the reader. In one case, I had an audiobook where the translator was the reader. She is an excellent translator but a poor reader.

Many authors are poor readers of their own work.

They are certainly good while you are on a long drive etc, because they entertain you while doing some another task which you wouldn't be able to do while reading. During lockdown, I could not read due to the constant stress and fear mongering, but I had to walk a lot every day and the audiobooks were a good way to accompany that.

Re: How to read more books

#79

I have an almost-four year old child and not a lot of downtime. I used to listen to podcasts when I was doing dishes, cleaning the house, walking the dog, etc. I've mostly abandoned podcasts in favor of audiobooks. It didn't feel like they were benefiting me in any meaningful way—almost like they were just empty calories for my ears. I finally made it all the way through The Power Broker recently, which I've wanted t…

Agreed, there's no one medium fits all in all stages of their life and a lot of the takes rooted in such a perspective can lead people to seek convenience (scrolling) instead of engaging.

Reading does force you to slow down to let more enter your brain.

Audiobooks can do the same in a different way.

Either way, longer form content helps the brain unpack and retain bigger/longer picture things which is the kind of focus that many want to improve.

Reading also helps one be more articulate.

Articulation is a helpful skill in using AI.

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