I find it very hard to find books worth reading. It’s so difficult to separate Signal from noise - there are just too many books and too few reliable curators. Amazon ratings, goodreads, some book awards, best seller lists - they all are sometimes hit, mostly miss for me.
How to read more books
201–210 of 310 posts
Re: How to read more books
#202I do not agree with his take on audio books. I find having a book with me and reading at all times as suggested a bit impractical, however for audio books it is way more feasible. I have long-ish commutes of 5h every couple of weeks and listening to audio books on the drive is great. I also listen to audiobooks when I vacuum, clean, grocery shop. Always unabridged versions and I research quite a bit what I want to listen to. I usually "hybrid" listen/read so I'll continue reading the physical book later in the evening.
I keep notes in a physical notebook but keep it super light. I read mostly fiction so it's usually plot points of each chapter and then when I'm done some quick thoughts. I enjoy this and it satisfies my analytical brain to think about things I really liked that an author did or reappearing structures and so on.
I also enjoy the meta-level of reading. Watching review videos on Youtube, thinking about what to read next and finding "hidden gems", so basically the hobby aspect of it.
Re: How to read more books
#203I love listening to Audiobooks if I've already read the book. I find it great for rereading, because even if I loose attention in between, it is okay. I know the story, but I still get to enjoy it.
Re: How to read more books
#204No discussion of what books and why. It's just taken as granted that it's good to read lots of books, to be a reader. I'm not necessarily disagreeing. But I also want to think critically about why I read books. I don't want to read books just so I can tell people I read lots of books. I've concluded that I read for entertainment, to understand other people, and for community - to have something in common with other r…
- I had the exact same thought as you: “No discussion of what books and why.” But while reading your comment, I realized that I am actually fine with that. I really do not want to think critically about why I read books. Over the years, I have come to feel that many of the things I find worthwhile are somewhat self-evidently worthwhile (appreciating art comes to mind). Do you really want to think critically about why…
I do want to think critically about why I read specific books. It doesn't take away from my enjoyment if the answer is just "I really enjoy the writing". And when the answer is about other people, then I think it's good to be aware of it - so you can say, for instance, "I'm glad I have all these books as a shared experience with all my fellow Terry Pratchett fans" --- or maybe, "Why do I care about what these people think?".
About "The World of Yesterday", I can only say that e.g. Zweig speaking about how he was moved to tears by some piece of art feels a bit alienating, when the art has no such effect on me. What you say
> it describes a time that is chronologically quite close to our own, yet also profoundly different, beautiful, and completely gone.
IS why I find the book interesting, there's just an asterisk by "beautiful" for me, since clearly Zweig thought it a lot more beautiful than I do. I can't feel what he's feeling just from him describing it, since recent as it may be, his background was completely different from my own in most ways I can think of. I do think it's likely I'll pick it up again, but I can't relate well to it on a personal level.
Re: How to read more books
#205I read 150 books (mostly short and accessible) in a year a while back. It was one of the happiest times of my life after a very dark period.
Re: How to read more books
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I don't think people should pretend that an audiobook is a book. You process the two in completely different ways. Is this attitude a holdover from encouraging small children to read for themselves? I don't know if this is quite the right framing but are you... hearing-illterate to some degree? Some voice actors definitely add a layer of interpretation, and some are distractingly bad, but otherwise it could not be a…
It's not a maybe. People's brains work differently. For one thing, in the written version, it's way easier to scan backwards precisely to a point in the text to clarify missed details. Sometimes I like to stop reading for a moment and take in the scenery. With an audiobook, the narrator has already decided to blurt out the next line. Or I'd have to quickly pause it and lose my train of thought. With reading I'm fully…
Fair enough, I understand the UX/interacting with the medium argument. Regarding the processing in the brain, there's claims that "The Representation of Semantic Information Across Human Cerebral Cortex During Listening Versus Reading Is Invariant to Stimulus Modality", see: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/39/7722
The study has issues but at least the hypothesis of representing information independent of the modality you consumed it in seems like a decent default to me.
Re: How to read more books
#207I 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…
I also don’t think people realize how often they zone out while listening to audiobooks and miss important details. You can zone out while reading books too but with audiobooks there usually another stimulus by design.
Re: How to read more books
#208I do not agree with his take on audio books. I find having a book with me and reading at all times as suggested a bit impractical, however for audio books it is way more feasible. I have long-ish commutes of 5h every couple of weeks and listening to audio books on the drive is great. I also listen to audiobooks when I vacuum, clean, grocery shop. Always unabridged versions and I research quite a bit what I want to li…
i never managed to pay attention fully to an audio book. i always have to go back 30 seconds every now and then cause i lose the plot. i am the same with books. i never read it linearly. i jump back a lot and reread a page or two. and jumping back is just way easier with text. and it’s easier with a physical book than on a kindle. on my big android tablet i can scroll fast back if it’s a pdf. but it’s not always fun to read on a tablet
Re: How to read more books
#209Love 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.
I understand what you mean but there is a depth of thought that is hard to capture outside a book.
The main problem is that so many books are really just essays or papers that get stretched to 300 pages because that is what the publisher wants. A great book I don't think has this problem.
I don't see a separation though between books, LLMs, papers and audiobooks. I would add youtube lectures in there too. They are all valued friends in learning to me.
Re: How to read more books
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I don't think people should pretend that an audiobook is a book. You process the two in completely different ways. Is this attitude a holdover from encouraging small children to read for themselves? I don't know if this is quite the right framing but are you... hearing-illterate to some degree? Some voice actors definitely add a layer of interpretation, and some are distractingly bad, but otherwise it could not be a…
It's not a maybe. People's brains work differently. For one thing, in the written version, it's way easier to scan backwards precisely to a point in the text to clarify missed details. Sometimes I like to stop reading for a moment and take in the scenery. With an audiobook, the narrator has already decided to blurt out the next line. Or I'd have to quickly pause it and lose my train of thought. With reading I'm fully…
I am sure people are very different in this area.
I love books and audiobooks and I experience absolutely no difference between the two but that is contingent on liking the voice actor's voice.
This year I have really moved to listening to all books read by the synthetic af_heart model. I love that voice so much. #1 Robertson Dean, #2 af_heart.