How I Consume Books • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Consume Books

#61

Post by rshudson » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #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, espec…

Do you have an automated way to export your notes or is it manual?Would love to hear more about your workflow.

Re: How I Consume Books

#62

Post by C1sc0cat » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

kthejoker2 wrote: post #45

hawski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that I'm in minority, but could you tell me what do you find great about Hitchhiker's Guide? I find it ok-ish. It feels overly chaotic for me. Like it really tries to wave the idea of improbability at me and eventually shove it. Of course everything is exaggerated for comedic effects, but for me it's like it tries too hard. The result is very incoherent. It reminds me of a few movies I enjoyed dearly when I wa…

Yeah ... HHGTTG is like a super extended standup routine or vaudeville act. Reading for "coherence" or "an idea" is missing the point.

It was a radio show originally

Re: How I Consume Books

#63

Post by C1sc0cat » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

latexr wrote: post #14

Barrin92 wrote: post #2

>his knowledge is small compared to non-fiction. Rest of the book is for your entertainment. And fiction does a good job of presenting the idea. To absorb the idea, it doesn’t require a thorough reading of the book (sometimes it does). For the same reason, I find audiobooks are a better medium for consuming fiction. By doing so, you also save your time. this is such a horrible take on fiction that I've seen popup in…

> the guy with the lamborghini and the bookshelf in his garage. I wasn’t aware of this. Found it[1] and couldn’t last through the whole thing. Right next to it on the search results was a parody[2]. [1]: https://youtu.be/Cv1RJTHf5fk [2]: https://youtu.be/kWoAqhdmlxI

Would you not just have your engineering manuals and the shop manuals (the real ones ) for your cars.

Re: How I Consume Books

#64

Post by Aromasin » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

Rainymood wrote: post #60

alexhutcheson wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I imagine the Mona Lisa is fantastic if you get to inspect it in close detail. Trying to poke your head over 100 flustered tourist, through a sea of arms, phones and cameras, is probably not the best way to appreciate it.

Re: How I Consume Books

#65

Post by signa11 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #2

>his knowledge is small compared to non-fiction. Rest of the book is for your entertainment. And fiction does a good job of presenting the idea. To absorb the idea, it doesn’t require a thorough reading of the book (sometimes it does). For the same reason, I find audiobooks are a better medium for consuming fiction. By doing so, you also save your time. this is such a horrible take on fiction that I've seen popup in…

indeed, there are some acquaintances who consume books 'filtered' via blinkist ^^). all in the hope of claiming in their conversation circles of how broadly read they are.

Re: How I Consume Books

#66

Post by goblin89 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #2

>his knowledge is small compared to non-fiction. Rest of the book is for your entertainment. And fiction does a good job of presenting the idea. To absorb the idea, it doesn’t require a thorough reading of the book (sometimes it does). For the same reason, I find audiobooks are a better medium for consuming fiction. By doing so, you also save your time. this is such a horrible take on fiction that I've seen popup in…

> As Stephen Frears, the director of High Fidelity, worked to translate the best moments of the Nick Hornby novel on which the movie was based, he found to his surprise that the best moments were the voice-overs, especially the direct speeches of Rob Gordon (John Cusack) to the camera.

> Frears said, “What we realized was that the novel was a machine to get to twelve crucial speeches in the book about romance and art and music and list-making and masculine distance and the masculine drive for art and the masculine difficulty with intimacy.”

> This is the case for most novels: you have to read seven hundred pages to get the handful of insights that were the reason the book was written, and the apparatus of the novel is there as a huge, elaborate, overbuilt stage set.

Re: How I Consume Books

#67

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

rimher wrote: post #8

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

One thing I learned (or maybe realized?) about math books especially is that they all follow a similar structure: a topic is presented with some proofs, followed by some sample exercises worked out step-by-step, followed, of course by practice exercises whose answers are available in the back of the book. One thing that helped me retain a lot of the material was to try to work the sample exercises on my own without looking at the author’s step-by-step instructions, just based on the description the preceded it. Once I was finished, I compared my work with his - I often found myself catching important concepts that way that I would have glossed over if I had just skimmed over the example.

Re: How I Consume Books

#68

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

polyvisual wrote: post #3

My mother was a librarian for 30 years and I gained a love of books from her; I just I wish I had more time to read. Between my day job in Fin Tech, my sideline business in my handmade leather goods and with two children at primary school, I basically have ten minutes before I fall asleep in bed at the end of the day to squeeze in a few pages.

> I wish I had more time to read.

My wife doesn't like to read and gets really upset when I do. I have the time, but not the environment.

Re: How I Consume Books

#69

Post by misiti3780 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

rshudson wrote: post #61

misiti3780 wrote: post #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, espec…

Do you have an automated way to export your notes or is it manual?Would love to hear more about your workflow.

It's totally possible to automate the process using Anki Connect (Polar Bookshelf does this). But I tend to do it manually because I like to add context and pictures when appropriate.

When Im using it to learn something like a new spoken language, pictures and sounds are very important. When I am using it to learn a new computer language, it is important to provide context and a good example/card to remember some specific programming syntax or feature.

Re: How I Consume Books

#70

Post by Aromasin » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

majos wrote: post #28

My approach to fiction is different from the author's, but there is a point where we agree: taking notes on books greatly improves the experience. Before and during college I read a fair amount of fiction. Most of it I enjoyed in the moment, and sometimes I even experienced those deep-truth-feeling "whoa" moments. But even then they faded from memory within a few months. Eventually, I'd recommend the book to somebody…

I do the same thing. My reasoning is, if you're going to put dozens of hours into a book, or hundreds into a good series, an extra 20 minutes at the end to file away any good memories from that really isn't too much of a time expense in comparison. Sometimes it's even fun. I basically wrote an essay on the Stormlight archive (probably my favourite ever series) which is something teenage me doing my English Literature GCSE's would have gagged at the thought of.