How to easily read 50 books a year

Oscar Wilde is apparently meant to be the master of quips, but the diary of dorian grey is not the greatest.

Dostoevski might be "good" but he goes on, and its a relentless torrent of misery.

I get what your trying to say, but for me personally I am not overly taken by "Good literature" books. They tend to be thick, obtuse or just plain difficult.

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It could be argued that finishing (and enjoying and extracting value from) books is a skill that can be honed by doing the quantity approach, at least initially.

I think there's significant value in being exposed to the different ideas/concepts/stories/whatever in 10 books than only being exposed to a single viewpoint.

of course, that means reading broadly, rather than deeply, but I think more folks should try to read more broadly in general too.

I would argue the first step is getting non-readers to read… anything. Just read consistently.

50 is just arbitrary and I still like it better than “how to read a lot of books each year.”

I don’t think the goal should be high quantity. But the goal should be developing a habit of reading and getting good information and/or pleasure from books.

I don’t think it’s useful for sorting people or friends, but it tells something of someone’s preferences.

Of course people can fudge the numbers or read tiny books or whatever but that’s like cheating at video games.

I don’t think the goal should be broadcast or talked about, but having some goal is useful for prioritizing time.

I also think that there’s no absolute number that good and I’d rather read 1 Brothers Karamazov than 10 pulp sci-fi. But a book a week is an easy to understand target that means you need a habit. Some books will be long and some will be short, but averaging a book a week means you probably spend a lot of time reading.

The article suggests identifying the reason you want to read it. In your case, you should identify what kind of problem you're trying to solve (even if not in an actual project and just in your head, something like "how DOES a cloud server work?") and then get that specific knowledge out of the book, as deep as you want to go.

Programming books can be expensive though, so you should generally google overviews of what you're looking for before committing to a whole book.

If you're having to read the thing for work, I guess identify what the problem at work/school you're trying to solve (or what project you'd be applying it to) and regularly relate back what you're reading to what you would do with it practically.

I’ve heard researchers speak about how they read papers—read the abstract and jump to the conclusion.

For my part when I read a non-fiction book that doesn’t capture my attention (and excitement) with the first pages, I jump to the index and scan for keywords which are of interest. Then I read those chapters first. This can sometimes jumpstart my interest in the author’s other chapters and their perspective.

I work programming books similarly. I know I have to work through some of the examples while I read. If the book is not specific to a particular language, say an algorithm book, I have tried to rewrite in my language of choice.

If all of this sounds very slow and non-linear…well, maybe it is and should be. Many books take months to write or years. I don’t expect to read them as quickly or to enjoy then the same as the Murderbot Diaries.

It’s a very good option if you think you might want to dip your toes into a variety of programming books, and don’t want to commit to buying individual ones.

Have you tried reading the more classical computer science books like Structure And Interpretation Of Computer Programs, I find I can handle getting through those (because at that level they are also trying to say something interesting about reality) but Web Developer Pro or Expert React Design Patterns (presumed fictitious titles that still sound pretty plausible) would probably bore me and make me put the instruction manual aside in favor of some experimentation.

FWIW I started reading Artemis last week by Andy weir after watching the Martian

There is no such thing as "intellectual superiority". All life (I will grudgingly accept limiting it to humans for this discussion) has equal value regardless of perceived intellect. I may be good at growing plants, you may be good at researching nuclear fusion. This does not make either intellectually superior (ego and god complexes notwithstanding).

Second, books in bookshelves have value beyond the $ value or content of the books in them. At minimum it's an interior design tool that brings life and warmth to an otherwise soul- and lifeless house (look at houses on YT with a value > $10m. - virtuall all of them clinically and lifelessly designed by "x" who is "amazing darling").

Books do what a drawing of your child does when framed and hung on a wall - they make a house look lived in. The people in it automatically gain depth that a framed photo by some famous photographer of a landscape or half-naked person can never deliver.

Books can give insight not found on the Internet. King Rat, by James Clavell (himself a former prisoner of Changi) gives insights that are rare as hens' teeth on the Internet, if they exist there at all. Another stand-out is The Ugly American which surfaces some uncomfortable truths that can alter lives. And they start conversations, excercising intellects.

Finally, worth. A book in the 21st century is worth at least as much as a movie. I say at least because it has secondary benefits like improving grammar, spelling and sometimes writing style. I don't believe a Twitter feed or blog can match a good book for unadulterated storytelling.

If you want to do something, you need to make time for it. It's fine to prioritize something else first, it's fine if you don't want to, but then you need to stop hiding behind excuses and own up to that decision.