5 ms·

Hi Alan, Previously you've mentioned the "Oxbridge approach" to reading, whereby--if my recollection is correct--you take four topics and delve into them as mu

Hi Alan, Previously you've mentioned the "Oxbridge approach" to reading, whereby--if my recollection is correct--you take four topics and delve into them as much as possible. Could you elaborate on this approach (I've searched the internet, couldn't find anything)? And do you think this structured approach has more benefits than, say, a non-structured approach of reading whatever of interest? Thanks for your time and generosity, Alan!

alankay1 10y ago
There are more than 23,000,000 books in the Library of Congress, and a good reader might be able to read 23,000 books in a lifetime (I know just a few people who have read more). So we are contemplating a lifetime of reading in which we might touch 1/10th of 1% of the extent books. We would hope that most of the ones we aren't able to touch are not useful or good or etc. So I think we have to put something more than randomness and following links to use here. (You can spend a lot of time learning about a big system like Linux without hitting many of the most important ideas in computing -- so we have to heed the "Art is long and Life is short" idea. Part of the "Oxbridge" process is to have a "reader" (a person who helps you choose what to look at), and these people are worth their weight in gold ...
- gdubs 10y ago
  The late Carl Sagan had a great sequence in the original Cosmos where he made a similar point about how many books one could read in a lifetime: If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.
- randomsearch 10y ago
  General question about this figure, which I've seen before: > read 23,000 books in a lifetime As a very conservative lower bound, a person who lives to the age of 80 would have to read 0.79 books per day, from the day they were born, to reach this figure. Or, to put it another way, who has read 288+ books in the last year? I'm quite sceptical about this figure. Any thoughts as to how this might be possible? Are the people Alan mentions speed-reading? Anyone else know similarly prolific readers?
  - di4na 10y ago
    AS someone that read at least one book per day if not more since the age of 6, yes it is possible. I can read between 100 to 200 page per hour, depending of the book. You reach a storage and money problem fast (Ebook are a savior nowadays). And you tend to have multiple books open at the same time. How does it work? There are several strategy. First i read fast. Experience and training make you read really fast. Secondly, you get a grasp of how things works and what the wirter has to say. In a fiction book, it is not unusual for me to not read a chapter or two because i know what will happen inside. Finally... Good writers helps. Good writers make reading a breeze and are faster to read. They present ides in concise and efficient way, that follow the flow of thinking. I will take more question gladly if you have some :)
    - tomp 10y ago
      What motivates you? Do you ever apply the knowledge you've gotten this way (do you even care)?
      - di4na 10y ago
        Multiple things. First it is something i like. Secondly, it is the only way i can absorb information in a way that works. Talks, video, podcast, etc are too slow for me. It lacks a good throughput of information and meaning. Which means i tend to just drop or complete what the speaker is telling. About applying knowledge : yes everyday, in my life. Once you hit a good amount of knowledge and have a nice way to filter it, think about it and deal with it, thngs become nice. Understanding a problem come faster. You can draw link between different situations or use ideas from other field into yours. Knowledge is rarely lost.
    - 3minus1 10y ago
      > In a fiction book, it is not unusual for me to not read a chapter or two because i know what will happen inside. This is ridiculous. It doesn't count as reading if you skip whole chapters.
      - 10y ago
EdwardCoffin 10y ago
Was it in The Future of Reading [1] perhaps? From page 6: In a very different approach, most music and sports learning only has contact with a one on one expert once or twice a week, lots of individual practice, group experiences where “playing” is done, and many years of effort. This works because most learners really have difficulty absorb ing hours of expert instruction every week that may or may not fit their capacities, styles, or rhythms. They are generally much better off spending a few hours every day learning on their own and seeing the expert for assessment and advice and play a few times a week. A few universities use a process like this for academics—sometimes called the “tutorial system”, they include Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the UK. [1] http://www.vpri.org/pdf/future_of_reading.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/future_of_reading.pdf

alankay1 10y ago

There are more than 23,000,000 books in the Library of Congress, and a good reader might be able to read 23,000 books in a lifetime (I know just a few people who have read more). So we are contemplating a lifetime of reading in which we might touch 1/10th of 1% of the extent books. We would hope that most of the ones we aren't able to touch are not useful or good or etc. So I think we have to put something more than randomness and following links to use here. (You can spend a lot of time learning about a big system like Linux without hitting many of the most important ideas in computing -- so we have to heed the "Art is long and Life is short" idea. Part of the "Oxbridge" process is to have a "reader" (a person who helps you choose what to look at), and these people are worth their weight in gold ...

gdubs 10y ago
The late Carl Sagan had a great sequence in the original Cosmos where he made a similar point about how many books one could read in a lifetime: If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.
randomsearch 10y ago
General question about this figure, which I've seen before: > read 23,000 books in a lifetime As a very conservative lower bound, a person who lives to the age of 80 would have to read 0.79 books per day, from the day they were born, to reach this figure. Or, to put it another way, who has read 288+ books in the last year? I'm quite sceptical about this figure. Any thoughts as to how this might be possible? Are the people Alan mentions speed-reading? Anyone else know similarly prolific readers?
- di4na 10y ago
  AS someone that read at least one book per day if not more since the age of 6, yes it is possible. I can read between 100 to 200 page per hour, depending of the book. You reach a storage and money problem fast (Ebook are a savior nowadays). And you tend to have multiple books open at the same time. How does it work? There are several strategy. First i read fast. Experience and training make you read really fast. Secondly, you get a grasp of how things works and what the wirter has to say. In a fiction book, it is not unusual for me to not read a chapter or two because i know what will happen inside. Finally... Good writers helps. Good writers make reading a breeze and are faster to read. They present ides in concise and efficient way, that follow the flow of thinking. I will take more question gladly if you have some :)
  - tomp 10y ago
    What motivates you? Do you ever apply the knowledge you've gotten this way (do you even care)?
    - di4na 10y ago
      Multiple things. First it is something i like. Secondly, it is the only way i can absorb information in a way that works. Talks, video, podcast, etc are too slow for me. It lacks a good throughput of information and meaning. Which means i tend to just drop or complete what the speaker is telling. About applying knowledge : yes everyday, in my life. Once you hit a good amount of knowledge and have a nice way to filter it, think about it and deal with it, thngs become nice. Understanding a problem come faster. You can draw link between different situations or use ideas from other field into yours. Knowledge is rarely lost.
  - 3minus1 10y ago
    > In a fiction book, it is not unusual for me to not read a chapter or two because i know what will happen inside. This is ridiculous. It doesn't count as reading if you skip whole chapters.
    - 10y ago

EdwardCoffin 10y ago

Was it in The Future of Reading [1] perhaps? From page 6: In a very different approach, most music and sports learning only has contact with a one on one expert once or twice a week, lots of individual practice, group experiences where “playing” is done, and many years of effort. This works because most learners really have difficulty absorb ing hours of expert instruction every week that may or may not fit their capacities, styles, or rhythms. They are generally much better off spending a few hours every day learning on their own and seeing the expert for assessment and advice and play a few times a week. A few universities use a process like this for academics—sometimes called the “tutorial system”, they include Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the UK. [1] http://www.vpri.org/pdf/future_of_reading.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/future_of_reading.pdf