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Comment by kmt-lnh | Hacker News Reader

In April 2021 I started to read 4 pages a day from big books I always wanted to read, but never had time for it. 4 pages and stop even if I get into the flow, 4 pages even if I'm falling asleep because it's so boring.

Not even 2 years in, I've already read the Bible, the Elements of Euclid, Zeldovich's Intro to Higher Math, and am in the middle of Das Kapital. The Great Books canon never looked more approachable.

Just 4 pages a day. It really adds up.

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My dumb but astonishingly effective life hack: I leave a big non-fiction book in the bathroom and don't take my phone in there. I've made my way through so many textbooks one bowel movement at a time because even the most boring one is more fun that reading the shampoo bottle.

How do you disinfect

You don't. People have been reading in the bathroom for decades. You're getting little shit particles in your nose regardless of whether you read in there.

Plus that's the only way to realize your brother-in-law is actually a drug lord.

Underrated comment

Thanks for the breath of "fresh air" with the philosophy - am all for cleanliness and hygiene but yeah sometimes it's just not possible (just got back from taking dog to vet. for UTI)

Yeah. Maybe you wipe down the book after you finish it and replace it with another book, but in terms of self hygiene you should be washing your hands after using the toilet anyway.

Would you appreciate a used terdbook as a casual gift?

Don't know of anyone who'd truly appreciate it but it'd be basically impossible to know about unless you did a test/asked etc. The Seinfeld episode on the subject is funny but quite dramatized.

The point being we all interact with fecal matter way more than anyone would like to know - even just by smelling.

It's been a topic for climbing gyms [1] and have heard the same for hand shakes but no link provided

[1] https://www.climbing.com/news/study-finds-fecal-veneer-on-gy...

Do you accept change in cash? Have you ever used your phone while on the toilet? Do you keep your toothbrush unsealed in the same room as your toilet?

If you have a toothbrush in your bathroom, you have much bigger problems.

keep toilet/bathroom separate yes

I tend to leave the book in the bathroom closet, so it's relatively clean.

But, I mean, most people bring their phones into the bathroom with them and then hold that sucker up to their face, use it while eating, etc.

i wash my phone lol

Having enough time to read a couple pages and move a bookmark forward during bowel movements sounds to me like a sign of constipation and a risk factor for hemorrhoids. Would not recommend. It's really best for those bathroom breaks to be fast and easy. Heed my unsolicited advice and spare yourself the considerable undue suffering that awaits.

Sounds like you don't get enough fiber or water.

https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/constipation/

I eat mostly veggies and whole grains. I barely have time to post a comment on HN before I'm done.

Comment makes no indication of the length or constitution of my bowel movements, but thanks for the concern.

The cumulative duration is "so many" textbookworths.

Cumulative over what timespan?

No idea to be honest. But my own (slow) reading speed probably gave me a bias.

Also, I advertise that site any chance I get, and judging by your reaction I may have overstepped, so I apologize.

Hopefully someone else seeing it will gain something useful from it, still.

Yes it was useful for me. Thank you both.

Totally! This translates too. I've had a home office conversion project going on the back burner for a while and always put it off because its so "monumental". I've started just working 10mins a day on it and the progress I made in two weeks was really astounding to me.

I would say, maybe DON'T stop if you get in the flow but don't feel bad if you can ONLY manage the 4 pages/ten minutes.

I keep thinking of a service that sends famously long books in short chunks.

"Infinite Text" or "War 'n Pieces"

Dracula Daily does this! More because the novel is itself epistolary

https://draculadaily.substack.com/about

Anyone know what copyright or legal issues come with this? Edit: I like the idea though

Tons of classics are public domain, shouldn't be any legal issues.

See: https://www.gutenberg.org/

If anyone else wants to do a more guided form of this, The Harvard Classics has a 15 minute a day reading guide. This website has the intro and a passable selection of .pdfs to use:

Guide: https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1

.pdf downloads: https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120212

Note that the page numbers are for the book pages, not the .pdf pages.

I did it over the pandemic, and yeah, it's really really good. But you do have to get used to older writing styles. The mid 1700s to early 1800s authors really like run-on sentences. Also, Shakespeare takes some getting used to, so pull up a YT video and read along as you listen.

You spent most of a year reading the Bible then (King James' is about 1200 pages, old and new?)?

Yep, I checked how many pages I need to read if I want to finish in a year with my printed Bible edition. Then just kept chugging along the canon.

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