Is this a good book for me, now?
maryrosecook.com
maryrosecook.com
But not only reading. Try going for a walk while thinking about some book your read some time ago. Look for the underlying ideas or story and reflect about it.
This also applies to memories. Changing, growing up, can make you change how you feel and reflect about past experiences.
I am know reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance while having a part time job delivering pizzas in motorcycle. It's a pretty awesome experience.
Timing is (almost) everything in life. I read 3-4 years ago "Though shall prosper" and "Half-time" and I could not have picked a better timing for both. I couldn't imagine appreciating either 20 years ago, and it would be "too late" reading them at my 70s.
So yes, timing matters.
But there is also 1984, which everytime I read it just hits the (same almost) spot!
What I have found is that sometimes, some seemingly innocuous thing I read years ago will pop out at just the right moment, some neural connection forms and all of a sudden I have the basis of a whole rabbit hole of interesting thoughts.
I think it's important to fill your mind with good stuff, things that have the necessary depth and maybe enough subjectivity that they're ripe for that kind of background processing. You are probably not going to have deep interesting thoughts about Twilight (although maybe you will, no judgment.) But philosophy, poetry, great fiction, even religious texts - they're all crammed with symbolism and really reward re-reads and deep thoughts.
A recent example of this for me is Kazuo Ishiguro's book The Remains of the Day. It was mentioned on a podcast I like and so I picked it up on something of a whim during a library visit.
The book is about a butler who served a "great English house" and when I started it I was deeply skeptical that I would enjoy it. But it's a great example of the kind of work that really bears out for thinking on, and since I finished it I've really enjoyed turning things over in my mind. I'm usually a genre fiction guy (sci-fi, horror) and a lot of those books just don't have the same depth.
I don't mean to disparage "light reading" because I'm truly not that kind of. snide intellectual douche. But it's really fascinating sort of watching your brain pick something apart that warrants deep thought, and it's a really cool feeling to be in some discussion with my wife and think "oh my god, that bit from the introduction of book XYZ is so perfect right now, I need to share it and talk about it."
One other book that I've really enjoyed the "post-processing" phase on is The Essential Rumi - the Coleman Barks translation. Those little poems are so rich and full of meaning, and it's seriously rewarding to let your brain go to town on them.
You should maybe try some other Ishiguro work. He has quite a lot of sci-fi adjacent stuff but he uses the speculative elements in a very interesting way that would not really be seen in traditional sci-fi where the speculative elements are often quite background and tacitly accepted by the characters and serve (as I take it) as more of a way of focusing attention on something emotive which is the true point of the book. Some people don't care for Never Let Me Go, but it made an impression on me almost as large as Remains of the Day did.
Absolutely same here, and as a matter of fact I did not know this when I first picked it up. All I knew going in was that it was "good" and that the ending made one of the podcast hosts cry.
It is a seriously beautiful book, I wish I was able to put into words all that I feel about it. It's got a sort of meta-layer - the events in the book just sort of pass by without much time for deep reflection by the protagonist. And the way they are described is similarly without much ceremony or reflection, so that by the end you are left with the same feeling as the butler - just this kind of sadness and feeling that things have passed by, irrevocably, to time.
I definitely plan to read more of his work - but now that I've experienced Remains of the Day I am almost hesitant. Sort of like when you hear a really sad song that touches you enough to make you cry - it's beautiful, but my instinct is sometimes to flinch away from stuff that makes me feel that hard. (Maybe I ought to draw a lesson from Stevens about that...)
But also, the small things like, you can just skip a section, or drop a book. If it's not working for you, then powering through it isn't necessarily going to make it better. But also this mindset has allowed me to re-read books, knowing that the "me" is different and I might get something new out of it.
I once read an HN comment a long time ago saying "why would you ever re-read books? You already have this knowledge. Seems like a complete waste of time" and I couldn't disagree more, but had trouble articulating why. Next time I will link to this post!
Most crucially, the valuable parts that transformed me were not the actual seven habits or what the online cliff notes cover, but the other, non-headline concepts taught deep in some of the chapters (specifically: universal spiritual morality, Personality Ethic and Character Ethic, Circles of Concern and Influence, and some others)
I get more into a book if I can allow myself a large enough block of time to read it. I had a phase where it was basically the last thing I did in my day, and I'd only chip away at 10-15 min, having to re-read pages, not getting immersed. I still like to read a bit at night but I give myself other blocks.
Emerson, like so many self-help books, offers what looks on the surface trivial and immediately obvious, providing a seemingly simple "if-only" path. Meanwhile, his ideas on individualism have done untold damage to society as a whole.
This isn't to imply something simple as "Emerson is wrong". He has valid insights. But reading them in a vacuum, assuming Emerson alone is sufficient reading, is not the best approach.
Ultimately, it is no accident Emerson suggests to "set at naught books and traditions", because that is the only way his ideas can survive unscathed.
(fwiw, the advice of "read widely" holds for any given book. Never believe one person has the answers)
This is obviously a bit hyperbole but seriously most self help books could be an article instead and I wouldn't miss anything that was cut
The formula is simple, the idea you presented has already demonstrated itself as extremely popular. But only a thousand people can attend that conference, let's print it as a book and sell it in airports, websites, and stores around the world as a nice packaged book that everyone can buy and it will surely be just as popular but we can sell it to more people.
But then the problem. Writing down the original idea only takes a few pages, maybe 10-20. So we let the author expound a little, which brings it up to 80 pages. But still no one is going to pay $20 for an 80 page book, so the publishers ask them to break small sub-concepts into entire chapters to get to the magical 275-325 page mark that 95% of books sell at. These fit into shipping boxes well, every store bookshelf is designed around this size, even US Postal Service's "Media Mail" is optimized around this sizing.
So in the end, you are left with most self-help books being extremely padded to get to the the standard mass-market-paperback size. So books that should be long blog posts or a 15 min presentation get dragged out into 275 page epics where it becomes clear by the end that the author has ran out of stuff to say and is just filling the page count.
One great example right now is the top-selling book: "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F$&#". I highly recommend everyone go to the nearest bookstore and read the first introduction and first chapter. They are absolute gold. The author summarizes the whole book in about 20 pages and does an excellent job. It is well written, entertaining, and enlightening. Everything you want in a good book. But then you can put the book down and walk away. Because the next 225 pages are just rehashing the same thing from the first chapter. Repeating itself. The author is clearly trying to reach the minimum 250 page count that the publisher will allow. He is grasping at straws and just re-iterating the same basic concept for 80% of the book. Sadly most self-help books are the same thing. Great concepts that need to be 20-50 pages.
I agree. This alone will make pretty much anyone read more, learn more, and enjoy it more. Too many people feel this weird sense of responsibility: having opened the book, I must read every word, in order, until the last page, or I have failed at my job. A healthier perspective is that books are there for you to use and throw away as needed, not a sacred burden.
I've even dropped a book by one of my favorite authors once. I just couldn't stand it [Makes note to check what Neal Stephenson wrote after Seveneves].
Incidentally, I have very recently stalled a second time on Anna Karenina, generally considered to be a masterpiece.
I'll probably revisit it later, but it's just not for me at the moment.
Also, The Idea Factory by Pepper White doesn't seem to be very popular (or maybe it is?). I first read it when I was in college and loved it. Re-read it in grad-school and I loved it even more. I think it was because I was in grad-school and could empathize with the main character.
Very much echoes some of the sentiment from this article.
Book recommendation systems should be a hybrid system with content-based filtering and collaborative filtering systems.
Reading history (lagging indicator) + browsing history (leading indicator) would form the basis of a content-based filtering.
The collaborative filtering part would ensure the system compares users with same reading patterns.
A system like this should address all author's concerns.
I feel like a lot of people have album(s) like this, I'd love it if you shared.
As far as individual tracks:
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times (From Pet Sounds) certainly hits differently depending on when you hear it.
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac has a similar effect for me.
You're ready to learn to skateboard when you're 10 years old because fitness doesn't really matter, consequences don't really matter, and there's nothing else really competing for your attention. Same with Baldur's Gate. But you're not necessarily empowered to do either, someone else has to buy you the thing to get started.
Later on, you become empowered to buy anything in your budget, but the liar in you pretends that you're actually in a position to learn to do it, even though the value it provides is tenuous at best.
So you buy the skateboard because you've spent 10 years of adult life getting fat and increasing your investments, and today is the day to do something you literally need no other commitments on the calendar for, because you saw your buddy still does from time to time, not realizing that the purchase is the most trivial aspect and actually it'll take 5 hrs a week for a year before your core muscles can even keep you upright. The skateboard goes into storage, and you go back to whatever you've always done.
By appreciating that any given thing takes a lot of work, you can better prepare yourself for the real practice of doing it, and reduce the likelihood that a new prospect will be a flash in the pan. You'll need at least the ability to allocate the time and money, because you'll need reps, and reps take commitment. Reading the book on Postgres internals is very unlikely to be valuable if you haven't ever heard of a database, have no use for one, or aren't a technical person of any kind, and you don't become one by buying it and putting it on your kindle for that one long flight.
That said, it's easy to become too conservative, and you need to figure out when something that you have committed to has declined in significance or is demanding more than it produces in reward, at which time you should start considering what else you might do.
The supposed 'reservations' against the article's thesis is just a restating of the article's thesis.
Reading books you won't immediately apply is good, and reading books that you will never apply is good.
You build an internal map of the problem space. Oversee in a short period of time where people have gone before you. It helps when you know nothing.
Yes the book is good for you now, because there was a reason you picked it up in the first place.
You don't have to 'experience' or undergo emotional turmoil to understand. Books can be both an emotional journey and packed full of useful knowledge. It's up to you how emotionally invested you become while reading.
I agree in general, but not with that specific statement. Even if there was a good reason you picked it up, it might not be a sufficiently good reason to spend 10 more hours on it, or to block the queue of other books that would be more valuable to you at that point in time.
Is a period of 10 hours (or however many) spent reading a book _so_ important to one that one must judge a book before picking it up?
> Yes the book is good for you now, because there was a reason you picked it up in the first place.
I disagree. That can be the case, but the assumptions under which it was picked up are often wrong, misleading, or become wrong over time. This article sheds light on those assumptions.
> You don't have to 'experience' or undergo emotional turmoil to understand.
But if I expect an experience and I think the characters are all flat, I'm disappointed. If the book speaks to me, I become more invested. Using recommendations and understanding their subjectivity can prevent you from picking up junk, assuming that's what you want.
So while I did enjoy the article and applying the little framework to my own reading history, there's no way to know before you read it, and probably even after you read it in a lot of cases, whether a book was the 'right book for you' at a given time. I guess that is the point of the article in the end, you can't reasonably build a book recommendation system based on past reading history and reviews of books. That 5 star you gave Huckleberry Finn, remembering how much you enjoyed it when you were 13, might be a 1 star if you read it for the first time today. Or maybe it would be 5 stars still. There's almost no way to know.
Lets say you are techie in your late 20s earning decently, living in a bubble of a unique society. What is good advise that you can apply as action immediately?
That said, there are timeless advice. But those sometimes require a huge will power and straying from norm of today to incorporate.
Books can lie and deceive and they can be wrong and evil.
There's this strange idea that books are good for you and television is garbage. Nothing is further from the truth. Both books and television are just different forms of human output both of which can be bad or good because humans themselves can be bad or good. One isn't particularly better than the other.
One thing about books though is the amount of effort it takes to read it. The effort is so great that completion of a book often leads to more bias. Not always but often. The more effort you spend on something the higher positive bias you build towards it. Hence books tend to be more convincing then television which requires zero effort to consume.
good, light, love, faith, kindness, beauty, glory, majesty, magnificence, sophistication, elegance, awe, fruit, colour, right, righteousness, wholesome, truth, noble.
I think television, films and books focus on the opposite of utopia. But if you know any that I would like, please recommend.
It seems out of place in your list. Is it an autocorrect typo?
The righteous... still bear fruit in old age. Ps 92
Sort of proves my point. This guy likely spent more time decoding, analyzing and reading the Bible then he has spent time on almost anything else other than sleeping.
If he spent the same amount of time doing the same for the Koran both biases towards the bible and the Koran would neutralize each other allowing him to become atheist.
Ironically, your comment shows that you didn't read the article. Maybe TV (and internet) has destroyed your attention span and reading books is inherently good for you.
"I used to believe that every book has an objective value. And I used to believe that this value is fixed and universal.
Now, I believe it’s much more useful to say something in this form: this book has this value to this person in this context."
If you read the article, which I think you did you would know that the person is saying books are inherently good for you and it's based on context. In the right context books are universally good. But I think you just know this.
I think you are just lying here. You didn't misread or misinterpret anything. You simply disagree with my opinion. Disagreement is fine, but lying because you disagree is not. You also got personal here you stated that tv perhaps destroyed my attention span. I mean that's close to "stupid". It's literally as far as you can go without straight up calling me stupid. It's still a personal statement or speculation on my character and it's basically an insult.
Look if you disagree then vote me down and state your disagreement. But respond respectfully. Don't outright lie and then insult me.
The idea isn't books themselves are good or bad, it's that the same book can be good or bad depending on who you are. Maybe that's a surface level view, but it doesn't relate to the second half of your comment?
I know the idea. My statement is saying books can be bad irregardless of context just like how television or video can be bad.
This person is basically saying all books are good. Just reframe context and everything is good.
I mean you can say this about practically everything in the universe even literal shit. Shit fertilizes plants.
I made a comparison to television which flew over everyone's head.
Basically it's obvious to everyone that tv can be universally bad or good right? There are good movies and shit movies and excellent documentaries. This concept makes sense.
But suddenly for books it makes no sense? All books are good? You just need the right context? This is wrong.
I'm sorry, I really don't see how you arrive at this. I would say the author expresses the opposite of what you're talking about (i.e. "this book has this value to this person in this context.").
I understand what you're trying to say about the inherent effort-bias relationship but I think it's very tenuous at best.
You're the one that didn't read the article:
"Now, I believe it’s much more useful to say something in this form: this book has this value to this person in this context."
She used to think all books were good. This paragraph shows her current thinking. That all books are still good. You just need to think about it from a different angle/context.
I'm sorry. But saying I didn't read the article is offensively wrong. I'm even inclined to believe that it's a lie. You're just deliberately making it up.
And who's to say visual media can't provide that depth? One can provide audio narration along with visual narration which in totality is greater information then just text alone.
You example of 19th century people saying books are time wasters and people now saying they are not illustrates changing bias in the people. Who's to say the people in the 19th century are wrong? Who's to say our opinion now is right?
It's simply cultural opinion with no logical basis.
This seems very hyperbolic. I might agree with you if we are talking about short form content...a magazine column vs something similar in video format. And of course, selection matters as well...watching one hour of a well vetted documentary vs watching an hour of Love Island are going to engage the brain differently.
Consuming books is a very active way of thinking, and consuming video media is generally very passive. The research that needs to go into getting a whole book across the finish line is pretty staggering(again, if you're not choose complete trash). Even when I read fiction, my brain has to create the imagery from the text, in rough form...and that is kind of beautiful. Watching an epic like Lord of the Rings...the scene is already there...there is little room for your brain to interpret it any other way.
Your comment about becoming more biased as one engages in one direction of thinking definitely holds true...each "fact" reinforces the held world view. Which is why it is great to try to read things across a spectrum on one topic...its difficult, but it gives way more perspective on the issues.
So you're not really dismissing parent's point that books aren't inherently good, and many will be half mass produced trash.
I think people tend to forget that for many centuries book were the only game in town, and you'd have to write a play, a movie or a radio show if you wanted your content to reach an audience. That means what we currently see as blogspam, trash documentaries, stuff like Joe Rogan's podcasts whatever you categorize them were produced in news, magazines and book form.
You could look around for the industry of speed ghost writing memoires when big events happen: you get famous for being involved in news cycle for a few months ? a publisher will approach you to get a book out with your name on it and it will be out in the world pretty quick.
There is a misconception that "money spend on something" = "higher quality". A book needing an editor, a printer and money to distribute doesn't mean it's intrinsically better than something that costs less. It just mean it has reasonable prospects to sell, whatever the reason is.
Sure we can only focus on the top of the pyramid of books written as an art, but then we should do the same for all the other media (think about people starting a youtube channel after retiring from decades of work in a field. Would these channels be worse that a book meddled by an editor/publisher ? probably not)
> Consuming books is a very active way of thinking, and consuming video media is generally very passive
That's the argument based on the brain needing to read and parse the sentences. Sure it takes more effort that parsing audio. But that says nothing about the quality of the experience. You're more "engaged", the same way you'd be engage in a TV show if you had to crank a lever to run it frame by frame. But I think in this social media area we already understand that engagement is far from the best metric to evaluate if a content is good for your or not.
[edited]
I'm not attacking books. Books aren't bad.
They are the same thing as any other piece of content. They can be good or bad.
I disagree with the premise of the article that all books are good you just need to reframe context.
Even the cover art of Legolas and Gimli on The Two Towers paperback circa late 80s early 90s wormed its way into my imagination. Some cover art is great, really awesome art, and sometimes I'd rather not have seen it.
Both video content and text content are still content. The writer or creator has the ability to lie and deceive and produce bad things regardless of the format of the content.
The bias is in people thinking books are better for no logical reason.
As for the research and effort required to read a book. I agree. Watching videos is passive and less effort. I mentioned this in my original comment. But I stated that this extra "effort" leads to bias. It leads you to perceive what you read as "good" simply because you spent more effort on it. When you spend more effort on something.your bias towards it increases by a huge amount.
Right and you caught on to this fact. You stated your disagreement and I respect that.
Overall you're saying books are better because they force your mind to be more active?
But I countered this with saying that the extra activity leads to bias.
You countered that with just reading a large spectrum of books. Which further entrenched my point. Books lead to bias which has the weakness of forcing the reader to consume a spectrum of topics to avoid bias.
When you read a book, it is up to you to weigh the words, intake the research, vet the author, and then see if you can find some counter points from other sources. If your excuse for being fooled by false content is “well they lied”…you should get some accountability.
The actual act of seeking is involved with bias. You don't understand people. When someone puts an extraordinary amount of effort into something they become biased for a positive result. Extremely biased. If you don't understand this, you don't understand people, I'm sorry.
Books involve much more effort then movies and as a result people are more biased towards books overall.
>When you read a book, it is up to you to weigh the words, intake the research, vet the author, and then see if you can find some counter points from other sources. If your excuse for being fooled by false content is “well they lied”…you should get some accountability.
What does this have to do with anything? You have to do the same thing when you watch video media. It's the same issue. Of course most people aren't going to spend that much time Vetting every point the author of either the video media or the book. It just doesn't happen that often.
However, The book by virtue of requiring effort to decode lends itself to being more believable due to the natural human bias towards things they put effort in. No one is going to spend years of their lives reading every inch of the bible and then come out at the end of that ordeal saying they don't believe. They will.