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Writing by hand is good for your brain

nealstephenson.substack.com

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Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#611

Post by oersted »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #186
citizenpaul wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually explains why I've never been able to get into his writing despite rave reviews and countless recommendations by people I know. Something about his writing always just felt tedious to me. Im an avid reader btw.

His earlier stuff was much better. If you tried Snow Crash or Diamond Age and didn't like them, he's not the author for you, but if you tried his more recent crap like Anathem I would strongly advise you not to judge him based on it. Give his earlier works a try and you may find he used to be able to write well (ie. he used to actually edit his work), before he stopped caring and just wrote 1000 pages of unfiltered g…

I find his earlier works a bit too bizarre and quirky. Although Snow Crash is the essence of cool.

Seveneves is probably my favourite, I guess I prefer harder scifi. Fall; or, Dodge in Hell and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. were pretty good too, although less so. I want to like the Baroque Cycle but I haven't managed to get into it so far.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#612

Post by noufalibrahim »

christoph wrote: post #558
noufalibrahim wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mortimer Adler (of how to read a book fame) has notes on this https://socrates.acadiau.ca/courses/engl/rcunningham/2022-23... MAny a times, the books I read don't have enough place to scribble so I keep a A5 half folded as a bookmark and write notes on that with page numbers. Once the book is over, I read through the points and try to reconstruct. I use a mechanical pencil myself since I like the teeth and my handwri…

Grandparent and parents always taught me books were sacred and shouldn’t be marked or damaged, not gonna side with either side as I do like finding small notes, etc. in 2nd books from time to time. I tackle it with a cheap little Canon Selphy photo printer I use for spitting out random hard copies of photos periodically from my phone. I always make sure to print an extra of any photo I really like. I then use these a…

That physical books age and retain pieces of their history is one of my favourite things about them.

I found a used book that was given to someone when he graduated top of his class in the early 1900s. There was an inscription from the principal of his college, signed and with a seal from the college. I stood there gazing at it and couldn't help imagining how he finished reading it, left it here and there in his house and finally, after his time, in the attic of the ancestral home. It was later discovered by his daughter or granddaughter and then when they were cleaning up, sold to a second hand book seller rather than just destroyed.

Contrast that to a PDF which is just as crisp and clean as it was when it was created (and which could, become a format for which we don't have a reader anymore).

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#613

Post by jibal »

jibal wrote: post #552
Diogenesian wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so condescending. The reason I buy used is that the overwhelming majority of books are out of print and not available digitally. Which makes the vandalism especially egregious!

Learn what words mean. That comment is not remotely condescending, and scribbling in one's own book (with no indication here that the owner intends to sell it) is not vandalism. Oh, I recognize your name ... wrong about so many things. From another one of your comments here: > No, my argument is that it's totally obnoxious to lend or resell a book that you've written in But the person who advocated for writing in one…

The guy who dishonestly said "This is so condescending" and is making swipes at whole classes of people, accusing them of being obnoxious, is complaining about personal attacks. Someone who has been here less than a month and in that time has rubbed many people the wrong way is talking about why people leave HN. He flags a comment referring to some narcissistic rando resenting people for what they have done with their own property as a personal attack -- who did I attack with such generic phrasing?

And his "presumption" is erroneous, absurd, and misrepresents previous commentary.

Whatever. My HN front end has a mute function and I use it for people acting in bad faith. Ta ta.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#614

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

jacobolus wrote: post #594
Diogenesian wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture. "Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick. It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you…

The owner of a book doesn't owe anything to a random future person who picks it up from their estate sale or whatever. Vanishingly few books are irreplaceable enough to need to be treated as special relics to carefully preserve for posterity, and those that are tend to be already in a museum, library, or the collection of someone fastidious. > sucks to see someone else's notes You don't have to buy books with notes i…

> Vanishingly few books are irreplaceable enough to need to be treated as special relics to carefully preserve for posterity

I wouldn't be so sure of that.

I always make an effort to buy books I really like (or expect to really like) in hardcover. This is because, around 20 years ago, I found some shelves full of books in a house belonging to some ancestors of mine. The books ranged from maybe 60 to 120 years old and had been unattended maybe for 40 or 50 years. At a first glance, all the books looked fine, but when picking them up, the paperback books literally crumbled in my hands and were unsalvageable. The hardcover ones were fine and I still have some with me now.

The thing is, lately hardcover runs of most books seem to be pitifully small. They print a few at the beginning and then they switch to paperback only. Often I want to buy a book that is only 5 or 10 years old, and almost no one has the hardcover. Those who do often demand extortionate prices. It's not uncommon to see regular hardcover editions of regular books with nothing special from 10 years ago, with retail price around €20, sell second hand for €100.

So if you consider that paperbacks aren't valid for preservation because they will crumble sooner than later, there will be many books with a rather small number of copies available.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#616

Post by woadwarrior01 »

postalcoder wrote: post #20

A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…

I do this, but with Post-it notes. Something to do with the deification of books in the culture I was brought up in, which makes writing on the margins of books a sin.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#617

Post by killerstorm »

mapkkk wrote: post #428
stiglitz wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll never forget seeing a girl in a cafe highlight, line by line, nearly an entire page of a textbook. Watching the page curl from the wetness, almost as if writhing in pain.

I'll (lightheartedly) come to their defense to say that this is how I and a lot of my peers made it through med school. The wetness of the page indeed unlocked some supressed memories. I think it's a combination of a ritual and some sort of somewhat-more-elevated engagement (or wishing thereof) with the material. Somewhere between meditative ritual and attention aid. I doubt it helped much, if at all - except for Sta…

Yeah... There was no "reading" in our ancestral environment, it's rather unnatural for a human brain to focus on the page where nothing happens. Some people can adapt to that, other people need stimulation of some kind.

And it's not like some ADHD thing which is new. E.g. Stanisław Lem as a kid: "But because the act of reading was too passive, too simple, I would rest a chair leg on my calf or knee or foot and with little movements keep the chair at the very brink of falling."

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#619

Post by TyrianPurple »

Back in uni, I used to write down notes both in class and during my own revision. It truly helped me pass tests. My go to was the Pomodoro technique. 25 minutes of reading and writing then 5 minutes of rest. Did this for four 25 minute sessions. By the end of the day I had short notes of what I had read that day.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#620

Post by charcircuit »

juliend2 wrote: post #472
charcircuit wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way people take care of their property says a lot about them. Destroying and defacing one's own property is not someone I would trust. I'd prefer to work with people who treat their possessions with proper respect.

I would not be so quick to judge. Book are better consumed actively than passively. To me it hints on a desire to absorb what's being read. i.e. a thirst for knowledge that is weighed above material possession.

A lot of books being read and not done so for knowledge. And there are other ways to actively consume without mistreating the book itself.
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