The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly

I disliked the word choices (unsophisticated reader) so much that I couldn't finish the article, ironically I suppose.

If you are going to make a bid for identifying a behavioral pattern or personality type or what have you then try not to use a word that carries too much baggage or would be generally considered the opposite.

I think if you asked people generally what a sophisticated reader was they would probably assume someone who read a lot, was willing to drop books and not finish them because they were not good, and so forth. But in this case he wants to call them unsophisticated readers in what I can only ascribe to knee jerk contrarianism and thinking it would be clever.

I mean really, if I could get everyone to call what was called a sophisticated reader an unsophisticated one think about what that would do for my genius career!

By this standard I am a terribly unsophisticated reader. The majority of the books in my home I did not finish. I used to feel terribly guilty about it. Still do sometimes, but two things helped to ease my unease.

Firstly, I started reading short stories more than novels. A short story can usually be read in one sitting and no-one thinks a collection should be read cover to cover.

Secondly, I realized that most non-fiction is (a) badly written and (b) can be read in a non-linear fashion. Just scan the table of contents and dip into the chapters that catch your attention. Skim first and read closely only if convinced. Use the index for cross referencing. Take notes for extra points.

Oh, and read How To Read A Book, by Mortimer J. Adler.

>As you read what you like, you end up liking to read. ...When reading becomes second nature, you read for knowledge and insights.

I found the premise of the article pretty odd. I enjoy learning, not necessarily reading. When I begin to learn a new topic, it's almost never that I'd rely on a single book. Most books assume certain prerequisites, and are written specifically to that level. But it is highly unlikely I'll have had the same exposure to every topic the book covers. Some I'll find too obscure and need a more basic explanation, and others I'll find too basic and either skip the section altogether, or find a more generalized review of the material. It is almost never that I read every page of a given book.

Granted, I do not read the types of books the article's author used as examples. I'm more likely to read books on topics like computer vision, or computational astronomy. And I don't restrict myself to reading, I'll use any material available like videos or on-line courses.

I like to have two books I'm actively reading at most times, typically one technical-ish book and one nontechnical-ish book. If I need more than two then probably I'm not actually interested enough in one of them and will just stop reading it altogether. I have a lot of books I've read 1% - 50% of and never finished, though coming back to one later isn't totally out of the question, it just goes back from my "reading right now" place to my shelf.

I have always done that. I don't like to read stuff that's too intellectually intense or stimulating in bed, so I opt for some sort of fiction or history. During the day I might read something like philosophy or technical/sciencey when I'm more awake. If something is especially mentally taxing I might opt for something lighter.

Doing this I might read up to four or five books at once, but always at least two. Reading should be fun and if you feel forced to read a certain book you'll be less inclined to do it, having options helps a lot.

This has some interesting ideas but is too opinionated. I usually finish a book before starting a new one and usually only read one at a time. There are exceptions but none of it speaks to how much I love reading.

This was not at all what I thought it was about from the title. The TL;DR: You can read more than one book at a time on various subjects.

What I thought it was going to be about: When reading non-fiction (in particular) you don't have to read the book straight through. Since this is HN, take a book on your hot new language of choice that you're going to submit 5000 posts about here. If you're already a programmer, the first 4 chapters or so are likely pretty useless to you other than for a quick skim: Here's how you declare variable, functions, classes, traits, whatevers. Here's the syntax for various expressions and/or statements. Takes a day, at most and you may not read it straight through, just skip around looking at the examples, look at the text if it doesn't click, type up a few examples/test cases and see if you grok it. Then the next 6-50 chapters detail specific aspects of the language, maybe a standard library or how a particular tool or feature is used. You're already an experienced programmer, you grok their OO model (if they have one), but maybe it has a somewhat novel concurrency model. Jump to that chapter. Go backwards in the book if something in it doesn't make sense to the relevant sections.

This can work with most non-fiction depending on your level of familiarity with the base subject or the style it's written in. History books sometimes have a narrative structure that makes this harder. A math book may be written with a different enough notation that linear progress is more critical so you can understand the author. But even then, I was reading an astrophysics book earlier this year and I did exactly like I described above for programming except with more attention to the first 2 chapters (calculus and diff eq were ages ago for me) followed by skipping to chapters that discussed things I needed to know for work.

I'm confused why they used "unsophisticated" and "sophisticated" instead of simply linear/non-linear. It's also weird that the author suggests that everyone starts sophisticated and should become unsophisticated.

Good article otherwise. Loved the remark that we shouldn't strive for hitting the yearly quota and instead just enjoy reading.

Shorter recommendation: read the chapters of non-fiction books in reverse order. Start with the end and work backwards. Authors tend to still be sounding out their main idea in the first few chapters, and the middle tends to be filler for publishers page count expectations.

Indulge them if you like, but with most authors, there are diminishing returns on your attention.

I think this is a personal preference. I always read for pleasure and have almost always read a single book at a time. Books for professional and immediate practical purposes aside, theoretically I have one fiction and one nonfiction book going at a time, but in practice I switch between them infrequently and usually finish one before switching to the other.

I think the author wants to say "read however you like," but he can't help adding, "and this is how you like it, so this is how you should do it," which, even if he's right about a particular person's preferences, is contrary to the message that you shouldn't worry about right and wrong ways to read, or worry about how other people think you should do it.

For me the biggest determinant of whether I read a book straight through or not is the medium. If I am reading on a phone or laptop, or even a kindle, chances are low I will read a book straight through.

However, if I have a physical paper book, then there is a much higher likelihood that I will read it straight through.

"If you are not an unsophisticated reader, you truly do not enjoy reading."

Just... no. Don't tell me whether I enjoy reading based on your standards of how I do it. Your way is not the only way.

This is just an arrogant author who's not bringing any actual substance about the topic.

For a better-written, funny account of the habit of reading many books at once, there is Joe Queenan's One for the Books. It was published in 2012 but is still in print.

Keyword searching transformed how I read