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Comment by sciencewolf | Hacker News Reader

I really don't get the goal of reading X books a year. The impact of reading comes from DOING THE THINGS that the books recommend to do. Often I'll speak to folks who call themselves "prolific readers", and it'll be obvious that they've retained a bit here or there-- but few are actually practicing those things!

Warren Buffet is cited as an example in this article. Sure he reads a lot, but most it consists of SEC filings and balance sheets. If you examine his quotes, you'll find he cites ONE book (the Intelligent Investor) over and over again. He read that one book, and LIVED it for decades. In my opinion, that's a much better goal than reading a book a week.

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I care to disagree. I read for getting different perspective on life, having fun with ideas presented in a book. So I don't retain much and I don't care about "doing those things" because I am not going to be next Warren Buffet after reading his biography.

What reading does to my mind is that it shapes "personality". I am not going to live by the "How to win friends..." but what I got from it is to be more friendly and open to other people and to be more empathic. I think it kind of stayed with me even thou I read that book once and did not follow recommendations to live by it and challenge myself to do all stuff there is in that book.

Then if you read multiple books and see common ideas presented by many authors you kind of get really great insights that stay for longer than when you read one book. Because then you see that more than one person thinks that way.

I second this. Between fiction and non-fiction I read (or mostly listened to) 76 books last year and am currently in my 14th book this year.

I get contact to a lot of ideas from a lot of different points of view. I am literally bathing my brain in ideas from many different people. Especially when I am listening to fiction these ideas tend to mingle.

This year, as an additional step, I am playing with the ideas behind the so called 'Zettelkasten' to better structure the ideas I extract from the books. And to reach a higher level of retention.

Non the less I mostly listen to books to relax while commuting. So every idea I gain as additional knowledge is an extra win in my book.

> these ideas tend to mingle.

This is the value I look for too, being able to see references to ideas in other fields. But I don’t know what it will be until I read and make the connection

See: Frequency illusion or Baader–Meinhof phenomenon

I think your advice is definitely sound for self-help books: unless you act on them they have no value, and given that most are bunk anyway reading a lot of them isn't going to help you.

If you are going to read a lot of books, then reading for pleasure (e.g. fiction) or books that are intended merely to convey information, is probably a better way to go.

> but few are actually practicing those things

It really depends on the kind of books you read. If you are reading a self-help book of some sort and you think its ideas are sound, sure, you should at least try to practice what it says. On the other hand, I don't think I am expected to jump under a train after reading Anna Karenina.

I agree. I read more than 90% of the ppl I know and I'm heading in a direction of quality over quantity - at least for nonfiction.

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