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Comment by natural219 | Hacker News Reader

As a personal data point, I grew up reading lots of "entertaining" books that claimed to have intellectual value, but in hindsight didn't really end up being that intelligent. My early thought heroes were John Stossel, Chuck Palahniuk, Ayn Rand, the Freakonomics guys, and Michael Crichton. While my views have grown more sophisticated over the years, those early adventures into "intellectual" topics eventually led me to study these topics in more depth and expose me to new, more complicated ideas.

So Gladwell's writings, if not specific scientific, may at least have some pedagogical value. Their entertainment value is certainly not questioned.

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I guess after the magic 10,000 hours of reading you became an expert on reading.

After 20,000 hours you get so good you can read in the bath without getting the pages wet. At that point you are ready to turn pro.

Way ahead of you: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bath+book&tbm=isch

It's funny that people here are mocking Gladwell and Diamond for presenting popularized, simplified interpretations of the science, but those people are doing the same thing by simplifying the works of the authors.

There's nothing "magic" about 10,000 hours. The implication is that hard work, practice and luck play a bigger role in success than most people believe. It's a theory. Sorry if it was too nuanced for you.

They are "mocking" Gladwell for presenting anecdotes as science, not for simplification.

Things by Palahniuk and Rand can have a ton of intellectual value. Anthem is a good story, and everything I've read by Palahnuik has been well written. They make you think, and even if you don't come to the same conclusions as the author wants you to, at least you can see how they got there.

I agree. If you judge a book by what you get out of it rather than what the author's ideas and motivations are you'll probably enjoy your reading a lot more.

That boils down to reading purely for pleasure, in which case fiction may be more effective. The whole point of non-fiction is that it should NOT be fiction, which requires intellectual honesty.

No, I think it boils doing to engaging with whatever you're reading rather than just consuming it. For non-fiction you can encounter the same facts as the author and reach different conclusions. Take something like Outliers, you can read it and say that his conclusions are too broad, but still get something out of the book.

There seems to be something different about, say, Rand vs. Gladwell.

With Rand, you kind of know these are her opinions. They are ideology. Much like listening to the Right vs. the Left in ideological debates.

But, with Gladwell, he delivers his conclusions as fact, based on "scientific" research. He observes very specific phenomena and draws concrete conclusions, then generalizes to a broader point. But, he doesn't say "here's what I think". He says, "here's what the data says".

With Rand too, you also know that she has a personal belief system/agenda. Gladwell writes as an objective reporter, just delivering the "facts".

Why Chuck Palahniuk? Doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the list.

He's got an incredibly creative writing style and pulls things off, like writing a novel in second-person, that not many authors could.

And I never got the impression of intellectual pretentiousness from any of his books.

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