Hacker News Reader

Comment by rukshn | Hacker News Reader

For the last couple of years I’ve only read non fiction. For me reading about real life events is far more entertaining and also a great learning experience that I can’t get from a fiction book.

View on HN

I'm in the same boat as you, having only read non-fiction the past few years. It appears quite ironic that the entertainment occurring in the real life events is surpassing the entertainment I hear one usually derives from fiction.

Opposite here. I almost exclusively read fiction now. I learn enough outside reading and use books exclusively as a form of entertainment.

You can "great learning experience" about the human nature from a good fiction book too. Classics have another function - being cultural landmarks, one can refer to in non-fictional contexts as well.

I read both both my fiction is almost exclusively Japanese and my non-fiction Western/Europe science/history-adjacent

See, because of the learning experience I steer away from non-fiction books. I am deeply afraid of the narrative red string applied to reality - connecting a tiny subset of the observable data points to a simplified interpretation/explanation of the whole. If I want to learn, I look at raw data, reports, white papers, etc.. Because authors always have some bias or other, especially when they decide to write a book-length document. (Except, of course, a data catalog of sorts, like a lexicon or other exhaustive enumeration - those are usually a good starting point) I have enough of my own biases, and rather get a diverse set of inputs on a topic. Fiction though? Sure, let's suspend our disbelief and have some fun.

Edit: to clarify: this is not me accusing authors of non-fiction books to always have some evil agenda to push. One human only has limited capacity and things will always fall through the cracks. Do your own research with the constraints you actually care about, if you can.

Yes, everything outside of personal experience is somewhat fictional - one probably wouldn't agree with the biases, assumptions or assessments of any author/content creator.

I think there is something deeply wrong with the state of contemporary fiction.

I was on Spotify the other day checking out the fantasy audiobook offerings and the only item that wasn't absolutely repulsive was Jim dale reading Harry Potter. Everything else comes off like cheap asset flips on steam or thinly veiled rants that you'd find on obscure subreddits.

Fiction is a variety of oft-useless drivel when the world is chock-full of compelling, urgent non-fiction.

Altho... science fiction is hardly useless, when it mentally prepares the ground.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com