Ask HN: How do you decide what books to read? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you decide what books to read?

28 pointsredelbee54 comments

Prompted by today’s post about Bill Gates’ “Good books for a lousy year” I’m curious how you decide to read next.

I happen to read a lot (129 books last year, 121 so far this year) and widely, but I’m wondering if I could be directing my reading better. I tend to read in certain threads for a while (I read a lot about the atomic bomb and Cold War this year, for example) but also tend to get interested in popular or award winning books, whether contemporary or not. I also read a lot of fiction, where my choices tend to be even more random than my non-fiction choices. Or I get interested in one author and read everything they’ve written.

My method isn’t necessarily bad but I’m thinking it might be time to optimize my reading a bit.

So HN: How do you decide what to read?

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My mix is 60% pre1950, 30% 1950-2010, 10% new. Nonfiction and poetry, English language.

Archive.org or any other public domain pdf source is great for pre1930 texts and I often end up buying them used in paper form. (They are very cheap in Fair/Acceptable condition...university paper libraries are shrinking...now is the time to buy them)

For PD texts, the author will often cite one or two other works in the body of the text. If you liked the original work, you will probably like the in-body cited texts. And you can quickly download a copy for free and see. Spider along the recommendations. This is great for “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”.

For favorite authors, there are usually interviews, or even whole books, available where the author describes works they like. You would probably like the same works too. Nowadays, you may be able to contact the (living) author directly for suggestions. Works about literature, writers, genres are another source. And bibliographies for more academic writing. Sometimes someone has written an annotated bibliography on a subject if you want to be thorough.

Please don’t “optimize” reading for pleasure. The heart chills at the word.

I have never, in my 60 years of reading, ever bought a book because it was on a bestseller list. When I see that monicker on a book, I instinctively avoid it unless I have already discovered it in some other way. It reminds me of junk food advertisements and they can be gamed. I have never regretted following that policy. Nor have I ever been interested in, nor would follow, the book recommendations of celebrities outside of their expertise.

First off, counting books you’ve read is a bit like counting lines of code. Sure it measure output in some fashion, but is a pretty fallible proxy for the real thing we’re after: knowledge.

But the question remains. There’s so many books and only so much time. For myself after years of taking a haphazard approach (bill gates list, stuff recommended on blogs, economist books/arts,etc) I’ve been working on a new strategy for the past few years and it feels like it’s working out well.

There is a 10-year reading plan for the “Great Books of the Western World. Within each year the books progress chronologically, and each year supposedly gets a bit more difficult.

Using that as a baseline does a few useful things for me.

- I never need to figure out what book is next.

- I can be reasonably confident that reading the books won’t be a waste; even if I don’t dig a particular book it provides context since, it being an important book, it likely influenced others.

- related to the above, I feel like reading the classic books gives me a better understanding new books; either because of a direct reference by the author or because the author is trying to dress up a not-so-original idea.

Of course the Great Books are not the be-all and end-all of human knowledge, so I make space for modern books, eastern books, etc. for that it’s as haphazard as before, the only difference is I’m more comfortable about skimming a book in(preface, conclusion, index, ToC, random chapter) and tossing it away if it doesn’t jump out at me.

I’ve actively worked on getting better at this. Excited to see other comments in this thread.

Also I recommend underlining and making notes in a book. This way when you go back to it you can engage with the ideas more efficiently.

EDIT: I also want to plug “how to read a book” which I feel like I do a lot on here. Really really good

I agree about counting and knowledge, which was part of the reason I wanted to see how other people think about it. I’ve always read a lot and probably always will, so now it’s all about optimizing what I read.

I hadn’t heard of Great Books of the Western World before but I’ll definitely check it out! I do something similar with movies and “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” which is also a great resource.

I still can’t bring myself to write in books for some reason, but I did take notes on all the non-fiction books I read last year. I haven’t kept up with that because it didn’t seem to help me with processing, remembering, or using the book much beyond being able to find references more easily. It was useful to find the references more quickly but didn’t seem worth the time invested in note taking. I’ll check out “How to Read a Book” to see if I can get better there.

>I still can’t bring myself to write in books for some reason

A lot of us have been taught that it's defacing (which it is if it's a library book or a friends' book), but really it's an act of love. There's no surer sign that someone has spent a lot of time with a book than to see it well worn and marked up.

I used to take notes before marking it books. I still do a bit, but the proble is that the notes are lifted out of the context of the book. Not so if you write in it :)

I'm a library fanatic, so I usually end up browsing at the local library until I find one or two books that look interesting. My local library actually has an "Undiscovered Gems" section that has lead me to some interesting reads from authors I'm not familiar with. I also keep a running list of interesting titles on my library account, putting holds on them as I finish books.

I'm like you, I usually bounce around between fiction and non-fiction to keep my reading balanced. For me, half the fun of reading is simply exploring and discovering new books/authors/series!

This is another good one, to just be able to browse.

For me, my local bookstore has an entire downstairs dedicated to used books, with a few shelves for "new non-fiction" and "new fiction". It's great to check in when I'm nearby just to see what's new.

I love browsing libraries (and bookshops) but I haven’t been able to go as much this year because of pandemic-related reasons. I will definitely be going more often once things have calmed down though!

Now I want a VR Library of Alexandria experience with the entire archive.org collection.

I'm a big fan of rereading the same books that I found super helpful/useful, vs reading a lot

Used to do the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge for multiple years, until I felt I was just padding my stats with books that weren't useful

Then I saw a Naval tweet that was: "I would rather read the best 100 books over and over again until I absorb them rather than read all the books.”

And I adopted that strategy, which has been more useful for me

The hardest part is knowing which 100 books to reread.

I'd like to think there's a period in your youth when you devour everything - even, god forbid, modern books on management. From here you move on to the classics - Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald. If a book bores you, drop it. After enough years, inevitably, you reach a point where you're ready for real literature - Dostoevsky, Proust, Molière, Kant - the greats.

Some books can't be summarized (poetry and real literature), some can be compressed to about ten pages and the majority to 0 pages.

Totally agree, feel like it comes down to an exploration vs exploitation optimization.

Don't have an answer unfortunately, still looking for one myself!

I do agree with the method you describe: taking the recommendations of others, and then later navigating toward what you feel is best for yourself

"The hardest part is knowing which 100 books to reread."

Not if you're like me - my total number read is only about that many in my adult life (other than textbooks and reference books).

This is a good insight, and I sometimes worry I am just optimizing for quantity instead of quality.

That said, how would you pick the “best 100 books” to reread?I also tend to reread things that I enjoyed in the past but it seems like there might be a better way to go about this. I do read from a lot of the “Best books of all time” type of lists and I don’t find a markedly higher success rate with that strategy.

I made this comment above, but it fits here too. I totally agree with rereading books.

I can’t remember the source, but I like the saying “if a book isn’t worth reading twice it’s probably not worth reading once”

129 books in one year is quite something. Is reading part of your job? I felt like I spent a decent amount of my free time reading this year, but I’ve completed only 23 books so far.

A very strong input into my book choices is reading the ‘classics’ in various domains. I will make frequent use of “Top 100 X books in Y” and “best X book of all time” queries.

I very much subscribe to the idea that selected books form a cultural and intellectual endowment of society to its members. Reading these selected books allows me to competently participate in society, as so much of our communication, institutional structure, and culture is downstream of these works. Examples of such works would be Shakespeare, Dickens, Silent Spring, The Intelligent Investor, Manufacturing Consent, Plato’s Republic.

Reading isn’t a part of my job, unless you count being well-informed or well-read part of any job. I am self employed but not in a 4-hour workweek kind of way (I enjoyed that book way more than I expected and only read it at the urging of a friend whose taste I trust).

I definitely agree about the classics and I’ve considered devoting an entire year to only reading in that category. Maybe 2021 is the year for it!

I watch a lot of courses at thegreatcoursesplus.com. Each course comes with a PDF outline that has recommended reading to accompany each lecture. If that lecture interests me I use Overdrive / Libby to search for the titles in either ebook or audiobook form.

Oh this is great, reading lists are super helpful. How do you decide which courses to watch though? I feel like I might have the same problem there.

Do you have any recommended courses on that site?

The "Big History" one should blow your mind. The one on the Black Plague is great too. All are high quality.

120+ books a year! I’m astonished. How do you achieve this? I struggle to read one a month.

I should probably turn off WiFi.

I browse indie bookshops, talk to colleagues and friends, read reviews and I’m on GoodReads. People know I like books so they buy or loan me books sometimes. I keep a list of loads of books that sound good, then chip away at it. The list is always growing so things fall off it, unread, eventually. It’s more of a stack, but with occasional queue behaviours.

I will typically always have about 10 unread books in a pile that I haven’t yet started. Which one I pick up next depends on mood. If I’ve just read an amazing novel I’ll probably choose non-fiction next as another novel immediately will often never feel as enjoyable.

I read in bed with a Kindle with all the room lights turned off and just read until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. According to Kindle insights I've read 95 books this year.

I've always been a reader though; my mother would buy me a video game on my birthday or Christmas, but anytime I asked for a book she'd buy it for me.

Your reading speed will increase over time. When I read, I don't read word-by-word, line-by-line; I kind of dart back and forth through the page scanning for what I deem important and excluding things like detailed descriptions etc.. Usually the first line of a paragraph will tell you if it's worth reading carefully. If it's something like

> "Character A walked into the detritus of the ancient castle left by the shelling. They were struck by the total destruction of the place, a place that had stood stoically for centuries against endless tides of invaders, all undone..." etc.

I read "ok, character A walked into a destroyed castle" and move on.

I imagine I'm not getting the "full experience" by doing this, but even when reading big series like Malazan or the Wheel of Time I don't find I'm suddenly encountering things for the first time: the salient details seem to stick in my head.

Just out of curiosity... ever read anything by Gene Wolfe?

Hah recommending Gene Wolfe is definitely one way to teach someone to read closely...

No, do you have a recommendation? Currently hooked on the 40k Horus Heresy series, on book 34 and hope to have it finished early next year.

> I imagine I'm not getting the "full experience" by doing this, but even when reading big series like Malazan or the Wheel of Time I don't find I'm suddenly encountering things for the first time: the salient details seem to stick in my head.

Don’t blame you with Wheel of Time, heck Jordan recycles descriptions word for word.

Not parent, but for Gene Wolfe I’d recommend starting with the “Book of the New Sun” series, especially if you’re into classic fantasy. It’s really something.

The thing with Wolfe though is you really gotta keep your eyes open to get much out of it. He plays a lot of games with point of view, subtext, and unreliable narrators. If you aren’t paying attention the actual story can sail right past you. Even then, there are things you’ll only pick up on the second or third time through.

After that, my favorites are The Fifth Head of Cerberus and The Sorcerer’s House. New Sun is imo definitely the place to start though, it’s the closest to traditional fantasy.

The Horus Heresy is not much better than WoT in that regard: I must read "they grasped gauntlets in the manner of warriors" or some variation thereof at least ten times per book

Try the first book from the New Sun cycle to see if you like the style. If yes, you'll have 4 more to enjoy.

If not, give Soldier of Mist a try (style is still great but more terse).

I read both ebook/physical books and audiobooks, which has increased my yearly count from about 60 or 70 to where I am now. And I’m a fast reader, though I don’t “skim” or anything like that.

Your process seems almost identical to mine. Maybe I should just be OK with doing it based on mood and what I have around or on my list. It works, but could it work better?

"I should probably turn off WiFi."

I recommend it. I schedule my router to shut down the wifi during the hours I should be sleeping. It's not so much a distraction thing as it is just a health precaution.

For non-fiction I'd usually go to the bookstore and pick the thinnest book on the subject. I don't like filler in nonfiction books. My favorite thing about them is if I don't understand a difficult passage I can go back and read it again until I do. Among others, this technique has gotten me Relativity[1] and QED[2] to name just a couple.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15852.Relativity

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5552.QED

Oh wow I never would have thought of doing it this way. I definitely choose books for their covers at times, but this makes way more logical sense. Although I do feel a good cover is a decent signal because it’s nontrivial to get that right, and if they were able to do that then they probably got other things right in the book too.

Hack for you: add all the books you want to read in blinkist, listen to the summary (2-10m in 2-3x mode), then you can classify them as:

A) Not interested --> nice, you saved yourself some time B) Interesting, but feel like the summary is more than good enough, so no need to read the book C) Interesting and you want to learn more because it just scratched the surface --> Read the book!

You can test this framework by listening to the summary of books you've already read that fit into these buckets.

This is the first I’ve heard about blinkist. I’ll check it out, thank you

I won't claim my method is any good, but what I do is keep track of every book I come across in Goodreads if I have the slightest inclination to read it. As you might imagine, this ends up being a lot of books (more than 5000 at the moment I think).

When it comes time to choose a new book to read, I'll select a category (e.g., history, fiction, etc.), sometimes just by picking one, other times by randomly choosing. Then I randomly select 20 books from that category and decide which of the 20 books I am most interested in reading. I also roll a die and 1/3 of the time I will use the same method to pick a book that I've already read to reread. I feel like it gives me a nice diversity in the books I read, but gives me enough choice where I am really interested in the books that I'm reading.

I will follow threads, too. If I liked a book by an author I may continue reading a few more books by the same author. Or if I liked the subject I may read a few more related books on the same subject.

My Goodreads is intimidating because of the same instinct to add everything that seems even remotely interesting. I hadn’t thought of choosing from that list more systematically though so I might have to do that. Maybe a random number generator with a subset of the books could work.

1. Hacker News, Reddit

2. Recommendations from public figures I trust (e.g., Tim Ferriss, Derek Sivers, others)

3. References in books I've read

4. Random references in conversation

I love sive.rs/book but I’m mostly through everything with high recommendation numbers. I do check back periodically to see what’s new though

+1 for the books recommended on HN. The books recommended here have been top notch.

There's even a website that aggregates books recommended on HN[0]. I have found good books from there on multiple occasions.

[0]. https://hackernewsbooks.com/

A lot of modern business/popular psychology books are rehashed ideas of older books and concepts. For example, almost every book on mental toughness is based on Stoic philosophy and being present/mindful. Almost every book on effective learning is based on deliberate practice. And so on... When you understand these fundamental concepts, you only need to read the best 1-2 books on the topic to grasp the idea so that you don't need to read the other 20 popular books that all repeat the same idea using different words. Unfortunately you have to read a lot to figure out the underlying concept of these books in order to figure out if a book you haven't read before is based on the same thing.

The hard part is to find out the best 1-2 books though.

I do the following for non-fiction titles:

Make a list of book titles from the footnotes of books I am currently reading. Then just check the average review on Goodreads, if it is over 3.5, I give it a go. This allows me to read about different subjects from respected subject matter experts (since they have been cited in a book I enjoy) while also making sure that they are well written and accessible to a noob (3.5+ rating).

For fiction, I just pick a random book from my local library. Surprisingly, this has served me well so far.

I hadn’t thought about using reviews in this way before. Do you find the aggregate review numbers to be helpful on Goodreads? I find that most books I’m interested in have seemingly artificially high ratings or very few ratings.

Yep, for me the ratings are a decent gauge for the quality of a book. Given the amount you read, it's likely that you'll exhaust the list of books that are highly rated and happen to be in your domain of interest. Since I read about 2 books a month ~ 25 books a year, I haven't faced this problem.

I suggest you look into English translations of books that are highly rated in other languages. Lots of hidden gems to be found this way.

Personally I find anything above a 3.8 on Goodreads to be a safe bet. Above a 3.6 is doable if it's coming off a personal recommendation or happens to be controversial.

Every time I come across a book I might want to read I add it to my amazon shopping list. When it's time to read a new book, first I check which titles the library has a kindle loan available for. If none, I go in order of cheapest first. Sounds silly, but it really does add up if you read a lot of books to spend so much money on them.

One way I've found fiction books that I wouldn't have otherwise read is to find High School curricula and go through the required/authorised/recommended books. Neighbouring school districts, other states, and even other Anglophone countries will give you a broad list.

I find the more important question to be "how do you remember what you read?". I think (at least in my case) remembering more of what I've read would be a better investment in time than reading more, or better directing my reading. I would love to hear tips people have.

The best way I’ve found to remember what I read is to read books in a way that they connect, recently that was Antifragile and The Plague (which is talked about in the conclusion of the latter). I did the same with Digital Minimalism and Atomic Habits.

I dont read that many books but I try to put effort in the decision of what not to read: if a book does not interest me, I drop it.

If you know what you want to learn it's easy to choose books, like you did with Cold War/Atomic Bomb. Healthy curiosity and research skills (to find the books worth reading for a topic) are all that's needed.

Most of mine are non-fiction and related to something that I'm working on or a skill I think I will find useful. I don't read very many books though.

This reminds me of the Einstein quote posted on here about reading too much.

I just read what interests me and inspires creative think about a historical era.

I typically listen to audiobooks and I usually choose them from author, or narrator.

I drive a lot.

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