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How to read more books

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Re: How to read more books

#141

Post by [deleted] »

jppope wrote: post #52
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #22

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…

[deleted]

Re: How to read more books

#142

Post by loughnane »

swed420 wrote: post #125
PsylentKnight wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it’s a pretty different experience for fiction, where the subjective experience is everything and the narrator can color your experience a lot. For nonfiction, I think the two mediums are virtually the same depending on the density of the book. Most differences come down to the fact that you’re more susceptible to distraction. Most nonfiction books are light and repetitive enough that I don’t think it’s…

Personally I like to highlight certain passages (non-fiction) for future reference, and this only works on ebooks.

Works on print too, no?

Re: How to read more books

#145

Post by coldblues »

I have gained so much by reading comments on Hacker News, articles, lurking in groups and forums, watching YouTube videos. Reading books is important because they have knowledge that is not accessible in another format. It is an efficient way to condense information and pass it around. At least it used to be, when paper was more scarce. Now books get fluffed up for padding. A lot of people should be writing articles instead of books. Those who are reading a large volume of books are most certainly reading a large volume of garbage. I have gained more from reading comments on here than I would have otherwise by reading junk self-help books, romance novels, and other kinds of YA. You should be reading the right books. The classics, the culturally relevant, the historically significant, the hallmarks of a domain or expertise, etc. The medium of publishing used to be a marker of quality, a filter, a selection mechanism. But as publishing became more accessible, the amount of investment required also plummeted. And just as it allowed many creatives and geniuses access to the medium, it also introduced a large volume of cheap material that can be easily dismissed as irrelevant noise, as you should.

Re: How to read more books

#146

Post by technothrasher »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #22

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…

I cannot ever manage audiobooks, because I tend to wander while I'm reading, thinking about what I just read, processing it, mulling it over, or exploring it in some other way. With a book, I just go back to where I stopped reading when ready and carry on. But with an audiobook, it keeps going while I'm thinking and not listening, and I miss it and have to rewind an unknown amount, over and over.

Re: How to read more books

#147

Post by alexpotato »

I am a big Twitter user and recently gave it up for lent as an exercise in "resisting temptation" (for lack of a better term).

I found myself reading a LOT more (mostly via the Kindle app on my phone).

It actually inspired me to get an actual Kindle which does help cut down on the "let me flip to social media" when reading.

Re: How to read more books

#148

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

coldblues wrote: post #145

I have gained so much by reading comments on Hacker News, articles, lurking in groups and forums, watching YouTube videos. Reading books is important because they have knowledge that is not accessible in another format. It is an efficient way to condense information and pass it around. At least it used to be, when paper was more scarce. Now books get fluffed up for padding. A lot of people should be writing articles…

I get what you mean about a great deal of books being fluff but are you sure you're not just looking at the self-help and bestseller section? Because this was my problem too, but I eventually figured out that if I really wanted to learn something or survey a subject, I'd end up with a college reference textbook. Or, audit a class and watch videos in Coursera or some other open education platform.

The irony of your getting this advice from an HN comment isn't lost on me, but if you're so concerned about fluff, I'd have thought that comments in the internet would be the first thing you'd rule out because it's so full of noise and non-expert hot takes.

Re: How to read more books

#149

Post by Groxx »

Personally: make a reading app the only app icon on your home screen on your phone. When reading is the easiest action, you choose it fairly often.

Re: How to read more books

#150

Post by carlosjobim »

dredmorbius wrote: post #134

I'd split this question into a set of parts: - Why to read? - How to read (from a literary / skills perspective)? - What to read: authors, topics, books, etc? - How to read (practice / technology)? Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book addresses most of the first three questions, and ... would be a good book to read itself. For an overview of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book > (Wikipedia) https://ar…

> Past a point, finding material worth reading actually does become a challenge, despite the tremendous volume of published works (hundreds of thousands to a million or more books through much of the 20th century and beyond).

Where does that point arrive? I'm right now at a point where my to read list is increasing faster than I can read, because I keep adding books mentioned in the other books I''m reading.

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