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Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

herman.asia

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Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#101

Post by cfmcdonald »

tptacek wrote: post #89
cfmcdonald wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are heuristics. They will of course produce false negatives. Given the huge volume of available books relative to available reading time in a human life, the most important thing is to minimize false positives. Whether the particular books you refer to are false negatives on these heuristics is of course a matter of opinion. I don't know Woodward and Bernstein's book on constitutional law; their most famous boo…

This is the same funny circular argument the author of these "rules" made. If you don't believe in the value of the reporting Woodward and Bernstein did, why would you believe there's value in their account of how they did it?

I think you're kind of cherry-picking examples here. My gloss of the OP's point was "be skeptical of books by journalists on technically complex subjects in which they have no direct expertise". e.g. it's common for journalists who have never worked in a scientific field to write popular science books.

A book about investigative journalism by investigative journalists is rather different.

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#102

Post by Emma_Goldman »

claudiawerner wrote: post #66
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any of the authors you've mentioned, but in my own experience, not reading books written by journalists is a good rule of thumb . That doesn't mean, obviously, that it's impossible for a journalist to write a good book. By profession, journalism is both shallow and narrow: it focuses on the surface of events in the given moment. That tends not to equip someone with the knowledge or expertise to write a t…

As a funny counter-point, Marx was a journalist and Capital is one of the most insightful books I'm reading at the moment.

That's a good point, but it's worth noting that Marx wrote Capital with the help of Engel's patronage. Journalism was not his livelihood, ultimately. And it was before the wide-ranging, academic professionalisation of the twentieth century. Had Karl Marx been born today, he would almost certainly have become an academic.

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#103

Post by madcaptenor »

madcaptenor wrote: post #95
marcosdumay wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For non-fiction, I think I have always unconsciously followed the GP rule, because I don't remember any book, good or bad, that lacked one. Fiction, of course, rarely gets one.

I can't think of any fiction that has an index. Do you have examples?

Answering my own question: the American Society for Indexers has a list. https://www.asindexing.org/about-indexing/indexes-and-indexe...

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#104

Post by mc32 »

tptacek wrote: post #91
mc32 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To do journalism well, I think you need insider help: a whistleblower without ulterior motive, corroborating evidence and subject matter experts who can confirm suspicions. So, I think there are ways for journalists to marshall resources and then do their part which is to write a coherent story based on credible evidence and opinion, but much of what comes from journalism is hurried and often put together after havin…

This is an answer to some question, but to neither of the questions I actually asked. Did my questions not make sense?

I’m implying this journalist had the luck of right resources at the right time for the right subject and proceeded in a manner to seek the truth rather than to simply want to bring Theranos down.

W/re economics. We have the likes of Fukuyama and Krugman who have influence on Americans with regards to economics but who are often taken as oracles, rather than accepting they are economics thinkers who can be wrong.

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#105

Post by tptacek »

cfmcdonald wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same funny circular argument the author of these "rules" made. If you don't believe in the value of the reporting Woodward and Bernstein did, why would you believe there's value in their account of how they did it?

I think you're kind of cherry-picking examples here. My gloss of the OP's point was "be skeptical of books by journalists on technically complex subjects in which they have no direct expertise". e.g. it's common for journalists who have never worked in a scientific field to write popular science books. A book about investigative journalism by investigative journalists is rather different.

How is blood lab technology not a technically complex subject? Are you saying Carreyrou had direct expertise with it, or that _Bad Blood_ is an untrustworthy account?

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#106

Post by minouye »

madcaptenor wrote: post #87
minouye wrote: post #78

Here's what I do. If I get a book recommendation, I immediately buy it and put it on a bookshelf. Every time I walk by, I scan the shelf and pick what speaks to me at that given time: fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks, science, history, classics, short-story collections, biographies, etc. If you match your what you read to your mood and frame of mind, you can consume and retain information much more quickly and enjoyab…

One problem with buying books when they're recommended is that it's a lot easier to buy books than read them. I recently went through my shelves and counted the books I owned but have not read and was shocked. So my current method is now to read the books that past-me thought sounded interesting.

Yeah that's true. And having a small apartment makes that problematic as well.

I like this Umberto Eco anecdote: https://fs.blog/2013/06/the-antilibrary/. Having a lot of unread books around is a good reminder of how much there is to read, learn, and experience. And it makes reading instead of turning to Netflix an easier decision.

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#107

Post by tptacek »

mc32 wrote: post #104
tptacek wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an answer to some question, but to neither of the questions I actually asked. Did my questions not make sense?

I’m implying this journalist had the luck of right resources at the right time for the right subject and proceeded in a manner to seek the truth rather than to simply want to bring Theranos down. W/re economics. We have the likes of Fukuyama and Krugman who have influence on Americans with regards to economics but who are often taken as oracles, rather than accepting they are economics thinkers who can be wrong.

Krugman won a Nobel prize in economics. Like him or not, you can't use him as an example of a "journalist" writing about a technical subject with which they have no expertise.

My argument isn't "all books are good". That would be a stupid argument. My argument is that these rules suck.

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#108

Post by Emma_Goldman »

tptacek wrote: post #97
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you're referring to the authors the OP listed. It's certainly true that I don't tend to read a huge amount of popular nonfiction, and that I'm young enough to have a generationally limited knowledge of what's out there. But, at the same time, what the best nonfiction books of recent decades have been is an open, and very subjective question. I have my own peculiar interests and proclivities. I think, from a…

It is fine to not be interested in things; there's lots I'm not interested in either. It's less great to have strong, sweeping opinions about things you're basically incurious about.

See where I wrote 'in my own experience'. The reasoning I gave, in any case, holds entirely independently of how encompassing my reading is. And to be quite honest, with the caveats above, I would hazard that I read far more nonfiction than most, i.e. I am not speaking from a position of unusual ignorance, as you seem to be implying.

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#109

Post by tptacek »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #108
tptacek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is fine to not be interested in things; there's lots I'm not interested in either. It's less great to have strong, sweeping opinions about things you're basically incurious about.

See where I wrote 'in my own experience'. The reasoning I gave, in any case, holds entirely independently of how encompassing my reading is. And to be quite honest, with the caveats above, I would hazard that I read far more nonfiction than most, i.e. I am not speaking from a position of unusual ignorance, as you seem to be implying.

I have no idea who you are or what expertise you have; I'm responding to your own statement that you're unaware of these journalist-authors because you don't read much nonfiction.

Re: Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

#110

Post by dtornabene »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #102
claudiawerner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a funny counter-point, Marx was a journalist and Capital is one of the most insightful books I'm reading at the moment.

That's a good point, but it's worth noting that Marx wrote Capital with the help of Engel's patronage. Journalism was not his livelihood, ultimately. And it was before the wide-ranging, academic professionalisation of the twentieth century. Had Karl Marx been born today, he would almost certainly have become an academic.

Journalism was literally his only livelihood. He was a journalist/editor years before he even conceived of the theories that spawned Capital, and he did it for the rest of his life. His first newspaper was actually shut down precisely because of his journalism on the question of the rights of poor to gather wood in forests owned by the crown and nobles. He went on to write for at least 3 other papers/journals that I know of, one of which was american and his work was directly on the American Civil war
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