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Comment by CapmCrackaWaka | Hacker News Reader

Unlike movies/TV shows, books tend to 'age' relatively slowly. Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today. Not only that, but there are a literal ton of books out there that have been read by hundreds of thousands of people and reviewed extensively.

I have found my personal enjoyment of a book to be loosely correlated with the goodreads / B&N scores. This gives me at least some signal with which to choose a new book. So why should I, as a reader, try out a new author / book that hasn't been read by anyone else? I'm sure there are a few jewels out there, but I'm sure there are even more duds. Reading a book takes time, and I don't want to waste my time / money on random selections of books.

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It depends a lot on what books. Many technical books age extremely quickly. You definitely don't want a 30 years old C++ book except for some sort of historical research purpose.

But even in literature there is timing, themes, references and fashion. You'd have a hard time writing Don Quixote today, because hardly anyone reads chivalric romances anymore, so the vast majority of people wouldn't know what you're even parodying. And I suspect most modern readers of Don Quixote don't really get it, excluding those with an education in european medieval literature.

Even without going that far, there are fads and fashions. If you want to write about wizards or vampires there probably are better and worse times to do it.

Even playing your cards right, how likely are you to get a hit? Because there's really no lack of good books on most any subject at this point, and it takes a very dedicated reader to exhaust the existing catalog, and the easiest way for a reader is to find out what's popular and try that, rather than giving a new author a chance.

> You definitely don't want a 30 years old C++ book except for some sort of historical research purpose.

I think even here it depends on what you're trying to get out of it. I wouldn't read K&R to get the latest information about how to write modern C, but I read that book once every 5 years or so because there are timeless aspects at its core. This is even more true of a book like SICP.

Yeah, but doesn't that make the point? Don Quijote has outlived the works it's parodying and people still want to read it, even if they need a lot of footnotes to get all the references.

> Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today

I'd argue that there's a large amount of books that don't age out of their value. There's a lot of good material out there written over a hundred years ago that's more enjoyable that the average modern book. Even books which are tightly coupled to their time period are all still relevant and valuable today.

A funny example, I was reading an author yesterday who discussed a social issue at a local university, and quoted a professor who shares the exact name of a well known professor today who comments on similar issues.

Most of what I read is well over 30 years old, if not older. And very much of it still reflects the world today.

> Even books which are tightly coupled to their time period are all still relevant and valuable today

As an example of this I would cite "Mr Britling Sees It Through" [0] which was written by HG Wells during World War 1. It was published in 1916 and describes in a novel the public reaction to the early stages of the war - and Wells had no idea how the war was actually going to pan out when he wrote it. I read it in April last year, one month into the first COVID lockdown. Some of the reactions Wells describes (from fear to to panic buying to concerns about the economy) were exactly what was happening in the pandemic. I found it amazingly relevant even given the massive changes in society over the last century because in many ways basic human nature is just the same now as then.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Britling_Sees_It_Through

Similar to The Plague by Camus. The progression basically goes:

1. Everyone ignores it since it's "not serious" 2. People play it down for political reasons 3. People start dying 4. People lock down 5. Alcohol sells out

At least where I am, this is exactly what happened.

When I read books, I enjoy it a lot more when I read a "known great" book. It's easier to just pick up a Dostoyevksy, Kafka, Saramago, or Murakami or whatever. Chances are I'm gonna like it, or it'll be entertaining enough.

When I try to explore my own likes, it ends up being frustrating because it takes a lot of trial and error. Consequently, I have no insensitive to read books that are recently published. It makes a lot more sense to wait for people to read books for me and tell me what are the great ones every decade. Meh, it works for me. Yes, I end up reading mostly 19th and 20th century stuff, but it feels sufficient.

ME TOO. I pretty much only read classics. They are just so philosophically complex! I wish that we read now, like we read then. But I suppose television and video content are an art in their own way, and I could adapt my writing preferences to the screen. But I just have no interest there. Perhaps I'm just stuck in another century!

Time is an excellent filter of quality.

Back when I was a kid my mom had a box of 7" vinyl records she gave me. For every Elton John or Hendrix she had, there were dozens of absolute garbage records. People often make the claim that music was better back then. No, it has just been filtered for you.

For books I tend to do the same as you. I have a finite amount of time on this planet and so little time to read in the first place. I usually reach for something older than 20 years.

It is interesting to note that even with these there are fashions. Abe Kobo was once casually referred to as Japan's most famous writer and now the name will get you a lot of blank stares, while Murakami was unavoidable for a while but is probably on his way out (I get the sense someone ten years younger than me is far less likely to be a fan).

>Murakami

In what world is he a "great" writer?

This is so relatable. I hunt out obscure books, but that's because I love really old surreal things and that is not the norm. And that's why only a few books get all the sales. Because they are the ones that turn up on Goodreads/etc. It's not bad that it works out that way. It's just, how do those other authors turn up on goodreads?

Your comment, in addition to that of some of the sibling comments to this one, is why I take such in incredibly dismissive attitude to the argument that piracy will mean that no new music, movies, or books will be produced. Even if it were true in an absolute sense—not a single wealthy failson made a passion project, bored teenager wrote better-than-the-original fanfiction, or freepunks made stuff for the joy of creation—there are already multiple lifetimes of music to hear, books to read, and movies to watch. Why should I care that they are not new? If you do have a genuine preference for contemporary works with modern themes, I understand why you would disagree with me. However, either of us trying to argue further in this hypothetical discussion would be less effective than agreeing that we disagree.

Sometimes they even improve, recently I was reading an old Stephen King where he spends a couple of paragraphs describing the rotary dialing process. When I first tried to read this book 30 years ago that was the sort of mundane detail that made the book such a slog, now it feels more like the attention to detail you appreciate in a period piece.

I think a lot of TV shows have reached the point where they're aging a lot slower too. If you launch a new sci-fi show today for instance, you're competing for eyeballs against Star Trek: TNG which hold up well in the modern day. When TNG came out old shows hadn't aged as well and the were unavailable to most people. DVD's and now streaming have given TV the equivalent of used book stores and creators now have to compete against the back catalogues.

That indeed does seem to be something of a challenge. I don't really find the Goodreads/other ratings that likely to predict whether I'll enjoy something, but there are countless famous works of fiction I mean to read which I know are, even if not necessarily to my taste, proven worthwhile to many people for a long time. Then there's a giant grab-bag of stuff of unknown quality with little way for me to sort through it. Unless I read a review of it that stirs me I'm unlikely to pick it up.

But... many movies and TV shows from 30 years are also still immensely enjoyable today. Or heck, from 70 years ago.

Why do you think movies and TV somehow age more than books?

Not the OP, but the first two reasons why TV & movies from 70 years ago age worse are:

1. Quality of special effects 2. Specifically for TV, it was often treated as the medium where you dump scripts that weren’t good enough to be made into a movie.

The vast, vast majority of content from 70 years ago doesn't have special effects at all.

And I'm sorry but that's not how scripts work. Episodic television and one-off movies have entirely different dramatic structures and aren't even remotely interchangeable. You can't just turn a movie into TV.

One of the greatest TV shows of all time, I Love Lucy, is from 70 years ago. And in terms of enjoyment, it hasn't aged at all. Nor did it require special effects. ;)

Above all, the 1950's was called the "Golden Age of Television" for a reason! [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Television

Sometimes those old books are fun in a quaint way. Talk about "negros" where you are expected to understand why the person isn't bad per se, but automatically unable to be anything other than a basic servant. We can laugh at it now, yet it was so common and wasn't even mentioned.

And then of course look at ourselves and wonder what the next generation will laugh at.

I suspect that kind of fun is less fun when they're talking about you, especially when it's still a problem today.

> Many books that were written 30 years ago are still immensely enjoyable today.

That is definitely survivorship bias. Do you have any idea how many books are created in a year, even before eCommerce? The vast majority of them are crap.

Correct, but also beside the point. OP was saying that it doesn't make a lot of sense to invest one's time and money into new works when there are so many older, vetted works that remain to be read.

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