Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#21

Post by ojbyrne » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 4:48 AM UTC

mb_72 wrote: post #10

"Of course, there’s nothing wrong with those things, and ephemeral delight might be good enough for some people, but I’m usually looking for something more out of my reading (in fact, I don’t read fiction at all any more)." I find this comment slightly arrogant and condescending. By choosing not to read fiction the author deprives himself of experiencing not only "ephemeral delight", but also removes the possibility…

When I hear someone say "I don't read fiction" I almost always think to myself, "You don't have any imagination."

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#22

Post by mtgx » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 4:55 AM UTC

You might not remember exactly what was in the books, but say you read about some good business principles. Those might become ingrained in your brain, and later in life, when you have to make certain decisions, you might involuntarily make those decisions to be compatible with those principles, even if you don't realize it.

Why do I think this? Because that's how ideas work. Sometimes we say that "we have an idea" for something, but that idea was formed from bits of pieces of our experiences and the knowledge we've gained over time, that allowed that idea to form. It didn't just pop out of nowhere. Your brain put things together from the bits of knowledge you gained previously.

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#23

Post by nhebb » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:10 AM UTC

I think most logical people understand the benefits of reading, so I'm not going to rehash that.

I went a number of years only reading technical books, but I've been reading a lot of Project Gutenberg ebooks lately - a mixture of autobiographies, fiction, poetry, and essays. I don't read them to memorize them. I read them because they interest me. I don't seem to have any trouble remembering their content, but even if I didn't, so what? I don't envision myself looking clever, quoting Whitman and Emerson at cocktail parties.

The main benefit I've received is that they are sort of a detox from the internet and other forms of media. They have a calming effect and allow me to think more clearly. It's been nice and I never realized how much I indirectly benefited from casual reading (i.e., non-technical) until I started again.

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#24

Post by siavosh » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:18 AM UTC

At the risk of being slightly off topic: people rarely discuss the fact that reading a book can have a negative impact on one's life. Books are just a materialization of ideas, and they can be good or bad. They can steer you down a promising path, or an equally unproductive one. And the problem with books is that they can be very persuasive, using rhetoric, 300+ pages can convince you of many things.

I've experienced this, and in the course of my own studies, certain books have taken me down paths that were not the optimal, and I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn't read (and remembered) those books so well.

That said, I've become a much more critical thinker after these episodes. Sometimes it's taken years to unwind the effects, but I guess my point is, books/blog posts/people are in many ways just ideas, and influences on us. Arguing over whether we forget them or not is not the most important thing about them--what is, is developing the critical thought process to wonder if they are in fact worth remembering at all.

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#25

Post by amitdugar » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:21 AM UTC

jmduke wrote: post #11

The list that the OP read: - Checklist Manifesto - Made to Stick - Confessions of a Public Speaker - Why Everyone Else Is a Hypocrite - The Power of Habit I think the fact that he's questioning the value of reading such books is fair (and I find it ironic that he's applying such rigor to try and extract value from such books), but these are hardly the books of great literature. Self-improvement and self-motivation bo…

I don't know about other books mentioned above. But I would recommend "Made to Stick". It is not the usual motivational crap or a regular self-help book. It is one of the most useful books I have ever come across.

Give it a shot, I am sure you will find something of value in it.

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#26

Post by kapilkaisare » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:25 AM UTC

siavosh wrote: post #24

At the risk of being slightly off topic: people rarely discuss the fact that reading a book can have a negative impact on one's life. Books are just a materialization of ideas, and they can be good or bad. They can steer you down a promising path, or an equally unproductive one. And the problem with books is that they can be very persuasive, using rhetoric, 300+ pages can convince you of many things. I've experienced…

I am intrigued. Would you be willing to mention the names of the books and the paths you believe they took you down?

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#27

Post by siavosh » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:41 AM UTC

kapilkaisare wrote: post #26

siavosh wrote: post #24

At the risk of being slightly off topic: people rarely discuss the fact that reading a book can have a negative impact on one's life. Books are just a materialization of ideas, and they can be good or bad. They can steer you down a promising path, or an equally unproductive one. And the problem with books is that they can be very persuasive, using rhetoric, 300+ pages can convince you of many things. I've experienced…

I am intrigued. Would you be willing to mention the names of the books and the paths you believe they took you down?

Sure. Probably most relevant in terms of this forum is a book 'Artificial Life' by Steven Levy. By itself, there's nothing wrong with this book. It's very interesting, and I would actually recommend this if anyone is interested in the subject matter. The catch is, I read this right before college. The summer before. And it had a profound impact on my course selection (and thus also the things I did not pick to pursue), it affected my internships, and research study all the way through the beginning of grad school. Looking back, I think I could have spent that effort/energy on a different path. Hence my general wariness to popular science books as they often can take mediocre ideas and spin them into romantic tales.

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#28

Post by dscrd » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 6:04 AM UTC

Why read blogs?

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#29

Post by chubot » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 6:34 AM UTC

I agree with the author that making an effort to retain what you read is worthwhile. It's too easy to be inattentive and let it slip by.

What started happening to me after I read to a certain breadth was that I would encounter the same idea in different forms in different books. I feel that's when an idea sinks in -- when you can point to multiple instances of it, from different fields or domains, phrased in a different way. If you don't encounter connections between books you've read or other material I feel that you're probably not retaining anything.

Whenever I read a good book now I feel compelled jot down some of the main points and connections to other things I've read or experience. Could just be a paragraph; sometimes it turns into many pages if the book was stimulating. I don't view this as an exercise in retention; it's just something I have to do now.

Just talking with other people who've read the same book will probably have the same effect. But I write it down since I can't always find someone who's read the same book.

Re: Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?

#30

Post by lionhearted » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 6:55 AM UTC

I didn't read fiction for around five years for this reason, but actually, there's some pretty compelling evidence that fiction (or, stories, rather) can help grasp difficult concepts better than non-fiction.

Chip and Dan Heath's "Made To Stick" goes over how we remember stories naturally much better than data/information not in a narrative/story. For my part, I can't think of any non-fiction that could prompt curiosity and attention to detail like the Sherlock Holmes series, or the process of gaining self-mastery like Musashi.