How To: Read more books
aaronsw.com
aaronsw.com
That's giving me almost 2 hours per day for pretty uninterrupted reading. Not that I read 100 books per year but it seems that it's much more than my co-workers, so I guess I'm above average.
Because of that I actually enjoy commuting. :)
It has been a great way to decompress; I actually enjoy, to an extent, my commute since it allows some of the days tensions to dissipate and I get to listen to and finish about 2 books a month.
When I read something, it sticks much better than when I listen. It's actually the same when I read something aloud, more often than not I have to re-read the text for myself afterwards, reading aloud doesn't seem to register with me. :D
One more simple lesson that I learned only in my early twenties.
You don’t need to finish every book.
This is a simple but powerful lesson. It reduces the mental burden of starting a new book to near zero. I’m now comfortable putting a book down 200 pages in. And that makes it much easier to start the next 600 page novel.
High school english classes teach us the wrong way to read books. It took me a long time to unlearn what I was taught.
Have this compulsive need to complete the entire book.
Afraid, that not devoting enough effort I will shortchange my reading effort. That I'd be withdrawing from a challenging but fruitful experience (if the text is difficult, or the author's style is boring or has a level of incomprehensibility).
I resolved this dilemma by at least making it half way through a book, or at least first two chapters for those dreadful cases. Or not at all, as of late, have realized that there is just so much to read, that no need to waste on uninteresting/uninspired.
This doesn't make them any less great, but it does mean that if you filter them because "I'm a little bored 100 pages in", you're losing out on some of the best stuff.
The most important question is, I think, why force yourself to read more books?
I grew up in a family where everyone reads a lot of books. No one forced me to read books but I spent most of my childhood reading something, being completely convinced that it is good for me.
I used to read everything. From silly to hardcore stuff, like philosophy, sociology and literature critique. From novels to strictly technical books about management.
I was able to fluently speak about postmodernism, and I was a complete imbecile.
It took me few years to realize that I actually learned nothing from books. My world expanded enormously just within few years because of few random discussions, people I met and admire, as well as Internet, and silly blogs.
If you say that books help you to focus, I'd recommend taking some hardcore courses of typography. Writing down the whole alphabet takes much more patience than reading almost any book.
I agree that you should read books, if you enjoy them. However, please stop treating books as something more special than watching a movie, taking a walk or other pleasures of life.
But most adults don't read good novels or tracts on philosophy or sociology and then come out learning "nothing." I promise that there is much more than "nothing" inside. I think it's awfully pessimistic to say that you can't learn anything from books after your experience; books are more or less the only window into almost the entire history of human thought and storytelling, and not being able to incorporate that history into yourself is a problem.
What's so pessimistic about it? Whatever floats your boat, pal. If books enrich you, keep reading. Do not force everyone else to do so, though. Might be that there are other sources of enlightenment. Nature, nice chicks, long discussions, Italian restaurants etc. It's pure symbolic violence what you do right now, pal.
Easy test, though.
Speak to a random literature folk, who graduated five years ago, or so. By average, he is completely clueless. You recognize he is smart, uses much complicated buzzwords than you've ever heard of, but chances are, you do not expect him to change the world, nor get laid.
It should be obvious what's my point. If you're smart, books might help you. If you're average, books won't change it significantly and sometimes might make things much more worse, clouding your mind or hiding your ignorance behind overly complicated concepts. Accidentally, most of the world is not that smart, and it's perfectly OK.
That's why I say that books are overrated, and we should ask yourself a question whether we really get so much from them as we think we do. Chances are that some people will keep reading but others would be more happy dancing, drawing or being next Sasha Grey or Stoya, without this guilt they don't read enough books.
By the way, I don't say that there is "nothing" in books. Nothing can be something, too. However, the knowledge about Humbert Humbert and a little girl he loved, is, for me, nothing significant.
-Sherlock Holmes, A Study In Scarlet
I was able to fluently speak about postmodernism, and I was a complete imbecile.
If your idea of hardcore is literary critique and postmodernism, perhaps you were reading the wrong (IMHO) books. Have you ever tried "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman", "Godel, Escher and Bach", or anything by say, Terry* Pratchett?
* whose opinion of literary critique is neatly summed up by this quote:
'I save about twenty drafts -- that's ten meg of disc space -- and the last one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and received by the publishers, there's a cry here of 'Tough shit, literary researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the rest are wiped.'
If you read the wrong types of books, the ones that do not resonate with your goals, then you will gain nothing. Reading Tolstoy, when your goals are in physics, will seem like a waste of time, a mere pleasure, sort of like watching a movie or taking a walk. But when your goal is to become a good writer, a better teller of stories, then reading Tolstoy can be an epiphany of sorts. You see how his stylistic effects can be applied to your own writing; how a novel can capture the spirit of the times much more effectively than any historian could, and so on and so forth.
Knowledge is only good when applicable, otherwise it is useless.
My approach, shortly speaking, was that I've found most of the stuff not challenging at all. So, I raised the bar, reading literature critique. Then, I realized it is pure bullshit, and jumped into sociology, then into philosophy, then into philosophy of mathematics and it turned out that pure textbooks are much more interesting after all.
Shortly, I agree it depends on the goal. Keep in mind, though, that people's goals vary a lot. And that's my point rephrased otherwise: if you are not interested in reading something, give up. Unfortunately, the current trend is to read books, and if you find nothing in them, the problem is in you. I try to fight with this symbolic violence, whenever possible.
@klipt, I don't want to create so many responses so I will give you the feedback here.
Yes, I read all the books you've mentioned, except Pratchett, which bores me to hell. I've found Goedel's proof itself more enjoyable to understand than the books about it. The commentaries, in this particular case, seemed mostly unnecessary. (I don't like this fetish of Goedel's work that extrapolates its misunderstanding to all other ares; eg, Putnam)
My opinion: seriously, blogs should count as minibooks and everytime I read a particularly good and in depth blog or something that elicits the "I'm smarter for reading that" moment, I'm going to keep a tally. That tally I'll consider a chapter of a book. At 300 chapters, I'll count that as a book. Let's see how many books I have after a year. I think it'll be around 100.
For me, blogs are micro books. And i have daily "aha" moments, that i cant get from books at this frequency.
And if you start including video, (If the speech was converted to text), then lets just say my number is close to 2 or 300 if not more.
Ultimately it's about having many "i am smarter" moments
You’re reading the wrong books.
I suggest reddit.com/r/programming, Hacker News obviously, and YourVersion.com for finding new stuff to read based on your interests, and then you can usually find more to read without too much trouble. There is always more!
The other point you illustrate is that most reading on the internet is scattered into bits and pieces. Going through all of those topics in one morning is too much, for my brain anyway. I'd much rather read on one of those topics at length and work out some problems and code. Reading small posts here and there may make me feel smarter, but I'm not convinced it actually makes me smarter. I ask myself, "How does knowing this change my expected behaviour or my anticipation of the world?".
(I'm not affiliated with the site, I've just found it to have a good signal-to-noise ratio.)
I am rediscovering what a joy it is to read books. It seems it does take a lot of work to write well. Blog posts, almost by definition, are not meant to be well-written in terms of depth and succinctness.
But, maybe I'm just reading all the wrong blogs.
There are lots of good blogs out there. I think a substantial number of bloggers end up getting published in books, and a lot of good writers blog. There is a lot of information out there, my primary point is that you don't have to consume it on parchment for it to count.
Heh. As I read that I realize I have being doing it pretty much all day today.
Seriously? Comes across as slightly sad to me.
The top priority on everyones list should be friends+family IMHO. Everything else is just 'stuff'.
Also I'd say there's far more to be learned/gained/enjoyed from other human beings than in any book.
dislodges tongue from cheek
If your goal is to read a lot, obviously it's primarily a matter of finding time to read. Aaron's advice is extreme, though. Don't isolate yourself entirely -- from people, the world, or even social media like blogs. Each of those has value. As the saying goes, moderation is key.
A lot of grown ups, most things we do, we do for other people, in one way or another. So when we pick a thing off of the to do list, we are picking a person to serve.
IMO, I'd have to find some pretty amazing books to justify dropping HN entirely.
How sad, especially coming from someone whose opinion I respect so much.
I love reading books, programming, sports, good food and drink, and a whole bunch of other things. But none of those things is an end unto itself. I do all of them as part of building a better life. Why? To share it with other people!
No matter how many cool things are on my list, sharing my life with others is always #1. If I find myself alone, then sure, I'll pick up a good book or project. But avoiding other people in order to have more time alone for books? Except for extreme circumstances, that just doesn't make sense to me.
"I don’t watch TV, I have no social life"
Many people tend to see deliberately introversion and aloneness as deliberate alienation. It's a cognitive leap that still confuses me; people assume a behavior that isolates the individual is out of spite for the social collective, even if the person carefully explains that they aren't doing this out of scorn but out of personal need or desire.
My suspicion is that aaronsw is just describing his relationship to those around him the same way they would describe it, but in more matter-of-fact terms. That he seems to have offended people so makes me think he touched a nerve, even if it did it tongue-in-cheek. My first reaction to this is to start reflecting on the social biases we have which would cause us to recoil in such disgust to the suggestion; are we being unreasonable in our expectations of the people around us?
Speaking for myself, I find other people a real energy drain. I don't live alone, but I feel delight and a deep sense of relaxation when I get the opportunity to have the house to myself for a few days. Company can be good, but in moderation.
I don't mean to be harsh or cold, but it's not my job to deal with someone elses problems day in day out. I purposely chose not to go into the psychology fields for that reason. I have my own problems, I have my own stresses, the reason I get together with friends is to forget the problems and relax.
I think it's a good guide in life to route out the sources of problems and stress in your social circles and remove them. I'm an introvert, perhaps not so much as others but I'm certainly not an extrovert by any measure, but with the right groups I can be going out almost nightly and I don't feel the usual drain.
Although I have to say, I will likely always look forward to two days alone.
I don't think that, even for people who actively sacrifice human contact to read, that it is an end to itself. It is possible that they are also building toward a better life, but that their concept of a better life does not include being in the presence of others whenever possible with something to share. Their better life might be one where they can spend time in quiet contemplation, and reading is the fuel for that contemplation.
Some people are just not that gregarious. And some who are gregarious find that it is a tendency that interferes with their goals.
The pressure for people to be gregarious is intense, though, and it is harder for those who aren't natural social butterflies. The natural tendency might be for someone to soak up an enormous amount of time reading. Because of the pressure to constantly be socially on-call, they have to make the choice seem much more deliberate. As a result come off as someone with an anti-social disorder. The result would be the same, but because we brand the end as less than desirable, they get cursed for their means. Either way, they get patronized, which simply isn't conducive to anything but antagonism.
This may not be the thought pattern aaronsw is following; I don't know. He might be actively fighting a natural extroversion because his goals don't align with his extroverted nature. I'm rather strongly introverted as a natural tendency. He may make a deliberate choice, while I drift, but am forced to make it seem at times a deliberate choice. Same ends, different means.
Nevertheless, the net you cast to catch him caught me as well. I suspect I have much more to understand about the naturally gregarious frame of mind, and would enjoy a discussion toward understanding. I'd also enjoy a discussion toward others understanding the less gregarious amongst us. I don't think casting an unusual or confusing behavior as 'sad' is going to help at all in understanding; it indicates a mind already made up. I'd rather be misunderstood or confusing than sad; then I'm not forced to apologize just for the opportunity to explain.
Hanging out with friends is like chocolate cake. You enjoy it more if you eat it occasionally than if you eat nothing but chocolate cake for every meal. No matter how much you like chocolate cake, you'll be pretty queasy after the third meal of it.
(original) http://www.infiniteinjury.org/blog/2010/02/25/reading-origin...
(response) http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ul/for_progress_to_be_by_accumulati...
(I agree mostly with the arguments made in the Less Wrong post, viz. "If one wants to know the Standard Model, sure, study it directly, but if you want to actually understand how to do the sorts of things that Newton did, you would be advised to read him, Feynman and yes, Plato too, as Plato also did things which contributed greatly to the development of thought.")
What he misses is that the seminal papers in any field are forced to really grapple with a subject for its own sake, while later works fetishize dogma and ceaselessly pander to the interests of whoever is paying for the work to be done, simplifying concepts to be understood by those of uncertain prior experience, and packing in features (ooh, glossy pictures! companion website!) that will sell copies.
There are some areas where studying the originals is not especially helpful, because subjects weren’t yet understood. For instance, the founders of quantum mechanics really had no clue what was going on at the beginning, and their early papers are mishmashes of math pulled from other sources which sometimes fortuitously explained their experimental results. So by all means, go grab Townsend’s Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics (2002) as a more practical and informative work.
In other areas, the famous “originals” (which is to say, those works which were good enough to last centuries while their contemporaries faded into oblivion) are wonderful. There’s much more insight packed into Machiavelli, Tocqueville, or James Madison’s writing than any modern political science textbooks.
And yes, economics as a field would be way better off if its practitioners had any idea what its foundational assumptions were about, or tried really deeply considering (e.g.) Smith, Veblen, Marx, or Keynes (or even, say, Von Neumann and Morgenstern), who had a real world to answer to, not just other economists.
1. Audiobooks - I subscribe to Audible.com and get books audiobooks from library and occasionally Librivox. I listen on my 20 minute commute, while I exercise, and when I'm doing mundane tasks like the dishes or cleaning.
2. eBooks - I put the icons for Stanza and GoodReader on the homescreen of my iPhone. When I find myself about to tap a game or feed reader or YouTube or whatever I check myself and ask myself if I'm in a good state to read (e.g. awake enough, have more than 3 minutes). I don't feel like I'm denying myself the entertainment of another game of Doodle Jump as much as consciously encouraging myself to opt for something that I generally find to be more satisfying.
3. Books by the bed. Nothing new there. I sometimes squeeze in a little time to read real, paper books before bedtime or when I wake up.
I haven't turned down the thermostat, alienated people, ordered stacks of library books or blocked any blogs (though I have drastically reduced the number of blogs I subscribe to). In fact, I feel like my life is generally the same as it was before I started reading a lot, except for the value I've found in what I read.
If you're curious, here's what I've been reading: http://goodreads.com/zzzmarcus
I do recommend requesting books at your library. It is awesome, like Netflix for books.
I would like to try blocking my favorite websites. I don't know if I would read more, but I certainly would work more.
[1] I have kept track of this since 2006, inspired by Kevin Drum. Here's my lists:
http://justlooking.recursion.org/2009/Jan/2#books-2006
http://justlooking.recursion.org/2007/Dec/31#books-2007
I read about 30 books a year. I read about 15 books for the first time, and then I reread a few of my favorites over and over.
I find some books are worth 1000x more than others. So when you've identified these great books, it would be a shame to not reread them frequently.
If you try and like it, please donate to your local public library! Just think of how much you're not spending on books and how much you'd spend for Netflix discs
As a side tip, I've usually got notions towards more books than I actually want to check out at a time, so creating an Amazon wish list is a really easy way to track interests.
From my understanding an average work year is around 2000 hours. If 'the average person' worked in an enjoyable environment that was as pleasant as watching television or reading a book they could easily almost double their input at the workplace by cutting out television.
Whether that would double their output is a different question all together.
Would be interesting to see a breakdown of time spent watching television vs. per capita productivity for different first world countries.
I used to force myself to complete books that I wasn't enjoying out of some misplaced sense of achievement on completing a "difficult" book.
I had the misfortune of reading "A Chancer" by James Kelman (otherwise, one of my favourite authors.) I was on a 4 hour bus trip, I was a captive audience. It was dreadful.
I stopped reading the boring story that I didn't care about and let my mind wander for 4 hours instead.
After that I now feel empowered to put down a book that I'm not enjoying, even one I feel is meant to be "good for me."
Being obsessive about reading books is nothing but an instance of OCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive%E2%80%93compulsive_di...).
Not daring of judging the author of this post. Yet, you cannot live this way for too long, it might be good for a while. If this situation become a constant form of life of one, that one is about to go insane.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/lit/chap...
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind
too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who
reads too much and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
-- Albert Einsteinhttp://www.esquire.com/features/answer-fella/toilet-reading-...
Unfortunately, now I have an iPhone where the web browser is better than the ebook reader so I find myself reading hacker news rather than novels.
Though, my friend is a theoretical physic geek.