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How I Consume Books

mubaris.blog

51–60 of 109 posts

Re: How I Consume Books

#51
Nuttall notes that "speed, enjoyment and comprehension are closely linked with one another" (1996: 128). She describes "The vicious circle of the weak reader: Reads slowly; Doesn't enjoy reading; Doesn't read much; Doesn't understand; Reads slowly. . ." (p. 127) and so on. Extensive reading can help readers "enter instead the cycle of growth. . . . The virtuous circle of the good reader: Reads faster; Reads more; Understands better; Enjoys reading; Reads faster. . ."

Thus, I would conclude that any activity, be it note taking or a similar endeavor, if proves to be disturbing the reading fluency of the agent, it could result in unintended secondary consequences, as such to foster an aversion to reading, supported by the deduction in reading pleasure and comprehension.

At the end, the agent could find itself spending less time reading, the main culprit being the very methods which it sought to maximize reading productivity, as such methods proved to be destructive for its reading fluency.

Re: How I Consume Books

#52
post #42
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Reading any good book and fully understanding it takes a lot more than a simple once-through hearing. Sure, you might catch the themes and be able to have a water cooler conversation, but the best books are the ones that aren't page turners; ones that you spend all night on, and only make it through 20 pages. Besides, when I read something really good, like Hitchhiker's Guide, I usually flip it over and star…

I'm pretty sure most fiction books I read don't have any deeper meaning. You make it sound like everything out there is some deep philosophical hard sci-fi. I would never want to read something where I spend the whole night just to make it through 20 pages. Sounds exhausting and not enjoyable at all.

> most fiction books I read don't have any deeper meaning

That's fine; keep doing what you enjoy. But there is life-changing fiction, so it is not as though there is nothing a person could choose to read that would be great.

Re: How I Consume Books

#53
post #8

Any tips on how to handle reading through more technical books?

The Feynman technique is very effective.

At the end of each chapter/section, write a one page summary, in as simple language as possible, to teach a hypothetical new student what you just learned.

Even better if you can then compare what you just learned to other things you know to clearly separate them in your mind.

Re: How I Consume Books

#54
I do something similar to "incremental reading" when reading all books (minus fiction, which i tend not to read). I use kindle highlights and notes to keep track of important sections of the books as i am reading them. Every few days, I export all my current notes to Anki and review them every day. This allows me to retain almost everything I read in some form, and also allows me to read many books at one time, especially technical books, because the topics etc are fresh in my mind.

I am not inherently anti-fiction, but there are way too many non-fiction books out there that I want to read that I cannot find them time.

Re: How I Consume Books

#55
> I find audiobooks are a better medium for consuming fiction. By doing so, you also save your time.

There should be a YMMV attached to this sentence because it's certainly not the case for me. The best that I get and retain comprehensibility of audio is 1.75x speed and that's still a lot slower than I can read the same text. Maybe the author meant that it saves time because you can do it in the car, whilst jogging/walking-dog, cleaning the house, etc. But in that case it's running on a background process (or at best time-sharing) which thwarts comprehensibility. YMMV

Re: How I Consume Books

#57

I disagree heavily with the author's understanding of fiction and absorption of ideas in fiction. Fiction IMO is best viewed as an exploration into a concept and not a presentation the way non-fiction is. In the way nonfiction describes the shape of a phenomenon, and is excellently riveting in its placement of the reader in the backdrop of whatever it describes- fiction walks the reader through edge cases and underbe…

I like the idea of fiction "as an exploration into a concept". I've seen a lot of people complain about Cixin Liu's Remembrances of Earth's Past trilogy because of plot holes or unrealistic elements, but I just appreciated the exploring how humanity might respond to an extra terrestrial threat, or what effects future technology, or disastrous climate change might have on human cultures. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Neal Stephenson's Anathem also come to mind as unique "what if" explorations.

Re: How I Consume Books

#58
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure most fiction books I read don't have any deeper meaning. You make it sound like everything out there is some deep philosophical hard sci-fi. I would never want to read something where I spend the whole night just to make it through 20 pages. Sounds exhausting and not enjoyable at all.

> most fiction books I read don't have any deeper meaning That's fine; keep doing what you enjoy. But there is life-changing fiction, so it is not as though there is nothing a person could choose to read that would be great.

Both you and the post I replied to seem to imply that fiction books without any deeper meaning cannot be good or great.

Re: How I Consume Books

#60
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree. Unfortunately this kind of "always optimizing" viewpoint seems to have spread like a virus over this past decade. It is sometimes difficult to remember that spending time to read/understand things slowly is not a waste of time, but an important way to appreciate the work of a master in a way that speeding through it at 1.5x on an audiobook simply will not provide. Do we speed-walk through the Louvre…

> Do we speed-walk through the Louvre to see the masterpieces as quickly as possible? This cracked me up, because I actually did that. I only had a couple hours, and the size of the museum is almost overwhelming.

I too did this ... would not recommend trying to run through the louvre in 1 day. I was kind of "forced" to (only had 1 day and I guess a rare case of FOMO). Spend at least 2-3 days there. It's huge with so much masterpieces. The Mona Lisa was a disappointment.
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