For a better-written, funny account of the habit of reading many books at once, there is Joe Queenan's One for the Books. It was published in 2012 but is still in print.
The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly
21–25 of 25 posts
Re: The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly
#22Shorter recommendation: read the chapters of non-fiction books in reverse order. Start with the end and work backwards. Authors tend to still be sounding out their main idea in the first few chapters, and the middle tends to be filler for publishers page count expectations. Indulge them if you like, but with most authors, there are diminishing returns on your attention.
This is interesting; I have a very different perception. In my experience the last few chapters are the ones where the author has decided they're done with their main premise and has gone out on a limb (which often breaks under them). I have any number of excellent non-fiction books that I've read voraciously until the last one or two chapters.
Re: The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly
#23I'm confused why they used "unsophisticated" and "sophisticated" instead of simply linear/non-linear. It's also weird that the author suggests that everyone starts sophisticated and should become unsophisticated. Good article otherwise. Loved the remark that we shouldn't strive for hitting the yearly quota and instead just enjoy reading.
I read it as an attempt to be a little cheeky, or at least tongue-in-cheeky. Teasingly applying a mildly unflattering term to the behavior the writer actually thinks is good.
Re: The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly
#24Shorter recommendation: read the chapters of non-fiction books in reverse order. Start with the end and work backwards. Authors tend to still be sounding out their main idea in the first few chapters, and the middle tends to be filler for publishers page count expectations. Indulge them if you like, but with most authors, there are diminishing returns on your attention.
This is interesting; I have a very different perception. In my experience the last few chapters are the ones where the author has decided they're done with their main premise and has gone out on a limb (which often breaks under them). I have any number of excellent non-fiction books that I've read voraciously until the last one or two chapters.
I'd considered that as well, and I'm wondering whether it's a time period thing. Post 1980's/90's and after the business book boom, I'd agree that the end is just summary because the short punch book form was really influential in publishing.
Your comment got me thinking. Mid-20th century and prior thinkers weren't edited the same way (hence all the doorstop books), and there was more cultural emphasis on intellectualism and literary flourish, a kind of auteur cult. It's these ones I'm referencing in my comment about skipping their sounding stuff out. Whereas I'd agree with your approach to anyone writing from about 1990 and after, arguably with the invention of "airport reads" and the mass market of people reading stuff on planes.
I'd even speculate we could probably chart the rise and fall of certain genres by trends in transportation. Viewed this way, it may not have been the internet that killed newspapers, it was a mix of downloadable podcasts and wireless plans. Car and office radio is still huge and it may have picked up the local advertising newspapers lost.
The fiction books that do well now are completely immersive, because the people reading them are committing binge level leisure time. The non-fiction books could be power point decks. The middlebrow market is a luxury and signalling good. The successful middle brow celebrity books that tell you what to think are basically blogs. TikTok and Twitter are the smoke breaks of our era, because everyone is always ready for service and to be interrupted.
Maybe the next great art stars will be creating art for self driving cars, where you can engage and not be entirely passive like radio, but just enough to leverage the distracted mental cycles of being driven around. The culture we consume is less about some intrinsic desirable property than an artifact of constraints on our time. Hmm...
Re: The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly
#25>As you read what you like, you end up liking to read. ...When reading becomes second nature, you read for knowledge and insights.
I found the premise of the article pretty odd. I enjoy learning, not necessarily reading. When I begin to learn a new topic, it's almost never that I'd rely on a single book. Most books assume certain prerequisites, and are written specifically to that level. But it is highly unlikely I'll have had the same exposure to every topic the book covers. Some I'll find too obscure and need a more basic explanation, and others I'll find too basic and either skip the section altogether, or find a more generalized review of the material. It is almost never that I read every page of a given book.
Granted, I do not read the types of books the article's author used as examples. I'm more likely to read books on topics like computer vision, or computational astronomy. And I don't restrict myself to reading, I'll use any material available like videos or on-line courses.