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Comment by janvdberg | Hacker News Reader

Here are all books I read (this year so far I read 50 books):

https://books.j11g.com/search.php?log=3

Three books from 2021 stick out:

- If This Is a Man by Primo Levi. I would urge everyone to read this. This history should be known to everyone.

- Defying Hitler (the story of a German 1914 - 1933) by Sebastian Haffner. Masterfully written autobiography that explains the rise of nazi Germany more than any other history book I ever read.

And one more for the HN crowd:

- The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz. Often tipped, but it really is an insightful book, and a fun read.

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I love your log and I'm inspired to build one for myself. I also read quite a bit but I have not been taking care to log my reading. I found the page describing the details of the application. Thanks so much!

How much time do you read per day? How long time to finish a book? I really should pick up reading more but there is so much that distracts me. This website for example.

I wrote about that last year: https://j11g.com/2020/07/01/how-i-read-52-books-in-a-year/

Long story short: read every day.

I notice my average is pretty steady, around 30 pages/day. So if I manage that, I’m good. But the thing is — with a good book — reading 30 pages is a breeze. And I often end up reading more. I also notice if I can’t read at least 30 pages in one sitting I probably don’t like the book very much.

When I was in jail with (almost) zero distractions I read 100 books a year and 100s of magazines each year.

Since release 5 months ago I have read a total of zero, but I am getting back into it. The real world is distracting.

I often have a fantasy of long periods of uninterrupted time to be able to just read. But jail time is not part of that fantasy! You seemed to have made the best possible use of your time though. I read some of your previous comments, I would be very interested to read your story when you are ready to put it on paper.

While I was in jail I read in 1Q84 that the only place a man has time to read the whole of Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" is in jail. So I had it sent in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time (4,215 pages apparently)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1Q84

I never used to be a "reader" but have built the habit through reading at least a section of a book everyday. I have had days where I rattled off 120 pages and days that I read 3 pages. With any habit it is about starting and building it.

I had to come back to this thread to say thank you for this recommendation. I just started reading “Defying Hitler”. What an amazing book! It is so well written that I could read it to my five-year-old. Really a deep dive into history from a first person perspective.

I am also reading JFK by Logeval, which describes the same events as seen (or unseen) from the outside of Germany. Being able to watch events unfold from those two perspectives is just fascinating.

It looks like the English translation of Haffner's memoir is titled "Defying Hitler: A Memoir". Thanks for the recs!

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