4 ms·

Wonder if there are many people like me here, I mainly read non fiction, stuff about business, the world and statups and programming ect, a lot of the stuff fea

by robryan 17y ago

Wonder if there are many people like me here, I mainly read non fiction, stuff about business, the world and statups and programming ect, a lot of the stuff featured on here but in longer format. I read the occasional fiction but because of my limited reading time and my reading speed not a lot, I can certainly appreciate well written text and love a good story but I find myself having zero interest in reading a lot of the classics of literature.

telemachos 17y ago
In an interview posted here not so long ago, Jason Fried said he never reads fiction. And something about the way he said it - I can't remember the exact wording - scandalized some folks (here and on the tubes). The reason I mention it now is that many people on the HN thread agreed with him and you that they didn't read much non-fiction. So I suspect there are a lot of people like you here. I tend to go in waves. Once upon a time, I was a Comparative Literature major, then a Classics graduate student. I read novels and scholarship about novels and then ancient philosophy and scholarship about ancient philosophy pretty much only. My days had only so many free hours. About five/six years ago, I became interested in programming, learned a first language, and now I devote most of my free reading time to programming books or books about programming. (With some breaks for this or that novel...) The big constant for me is reading. In my experience, it's not so much a question of what you read but if you read. Readers read - a lot - even if their tastes vary over time. I remember literally running my middle school library out of books in five or six categories. The librarian would laugh and point me in a different direction when I finished a type of book. That part has never changed.
chasingsparks 17y ago
I'm (almost done) writing a blog post about this. Concise summary: I used to think the same way but now I don't. Fiction allows you to experience situations that test your character by comparing your theoretical actions with that of the fictional characters. It's not only passive entertainment, but it's very active process of introspection.
- yesimahuman 17y ago
  I agree with this. Every time I finish a classic I feel like I've just been amazingly enlightened, and I find myself recommending the book to my friends non stop for a few months. The problem is I don't give myself time to read them very often if ever.
- robryan 17y ago
  I guess it depends where you are at in life to, as you said in your blog post in some areas of non fiction you have reached the point where it give you little value to read more on the subject. I watch quiet a few TV shows, a well written TV production can give you a similar feeling to a well written novel without the time investment. Certainly not arguing that a TV show is a better form than a novel, just a good substitute in which a great story can unfold over time and only take up 45 minutes of your week.
bluesmoon 17y ago
I think I decided somewhere in the middle of my teens that "well read" wasn't something I cared to be... at least not in the traditional sense. I'd already been programming computers for seven or eight years, and tech was the kind of reading I was interested in. At that age business and startups weren't on the list (I didn't even know what a startup was and I wanted to be a long haired hippie hacker, so business wasn't interesting either). It was only when I hit thirty that business and startup books started to look interesting. Maybe it's because my hair decided that long wasn't what it wanted to be, in fact what it wanted was to not be. When people ask me if I've read Robinson Crusoe or Wuthering Heights or Great Expectations, I can look them in the eye and say yes, but that's only because back in the '80s, someone took the trouble to publish them in comic book form :D These days I read Pratchett.
gte910h 17y ago
Don't read the classics of literature. Read the modern day classics or even Genre classics; you will relate to them much more
- telemachos 17y ago
  Just my two cents (and I didn't vote on your comment one way or the other), but that's an awfully big generalization. I put down a list of my must tries on this thread, and maybe you should do the same. People vary so much in their tastes that it's easier to point to the good than say "Don't read" this or that.
  - sketerpot 17y ago
    Even so, I think it's useful to try to remove some of the mystique around old classics. I'm not saying there isn't some great stuff there -- I'm sure there is -- but it's hard to disentangle greatness from snobbishness.
  - gte910h 17y ago
    A great deal of classics require a boatload of history and context to enjoy. For instance: Most of Dickens is about 3x more interesting when you know the history of England for the timespan as well as the Poor laws and all that. Additionally it's very important to know Dickens was paid by the word (so if it feels like a section can be skipped, it likely can). For modern classics, you already have most of the context and history, so you don't have accessibility issues. I'm not saying "Don't read the classics" I'm saying "Start reading modern fiction which is considered a classic, even genre classics". Once people catch the reading (fiction) bug, they eventually try a classic or two.
sailormoon 17y ago
You should try reading some science fiction. It's all well and good to learn about the day to day startup business stuff, but science fiction will give you ideas about what that startup should be doing in the first place! My favourites are Neal Stephenson and Iain Banks. I always feel like I gained far more from their books than I put into them. Everyone's different of course but they're two authors I can wholeheartedly recommend.

by robryan 17y ago

telemachos 17y ago

In an interview posted here not so long ago, Jason Fried said he never reads fiction. And something about the way he said it - I can't remember the exact wording - scandalized some folks (here and on the tubes). The reason I mention it now is that many people on the HN thread agreed with him and you that they didn't read much non-fiction. So I suspect there are a lot of people like you here. I tend to go in waves. Once upon a time, I was a Comparative Literature major, then a Classics graduate student. I read novels and scholarship about novels and then ancient philosophy and scholarship about ancient philosophy pretty much only. My days had only so many free hours. About five/six years ago, I became interested in programming, learned a first language, and now I devote most of my free reading time to programming books or books about programming. (With some breaks for this or that novel...) The big constant for me is reading. In my experience, it's not so much a question of what you read but if you read. Readers read - a lot - even if their tastes vary over time. I remember literally running my middle school library out of books in five or six categories. The librarian would laugh and point me in a different direction when I finished a type of book. That part has never changed.

chasingsparks 17y ago

I'm (almost done) writing a blog post about this. Concise summary: I used to think the same way but now I don't. Fiction allows you to experience situations that test your character by comparing your theoretical actions with that of the fictional characters. It's not only passive entertainment, but it's very active process of introspection.

yesimahuman 17y ago
I agree with this. Every time I finish a classic I feel like I've just been amazingly enlightened, and I find myself recommending the book to my friends non stop for a few months. The problem is I don't give myself time to read them very often if ever.
robryan 17y ago
I guess it depends where you are at in life to, as you said in your blog post in some areas of non fiction you have reached the point where it give you little value to read more on the subject. I watch quiet a few TV shows, a well written TV production can give you a similar feeling to a well written novel without the time investment. Certainly not arguing that a TV show is a better form than a novel, just a good substitute in which a great story can unfold over time and only take up 45 minutes of your week.

bluesmoon 17y ago

I think I decided somewhere in the middle of my teens that "well read" wasn't something I cared to be... at least not in the traditional sense. I'd already been programming computers for seven or eight years, and tech was the kind of reading I was interested in. At that age business and startups weren't on the list (I didn't even know what a startup was and I wanted to be a long haired hippie hacker, so business wasn't interesting either). It was only when I hit thirty that business and startup books started to look interesting. Maybe it's because my hair decided that long wasn't what it wanted to be, in fact what it wanted was to not be. When people ask me if I've read Robinson Crusoe or Wuthering Heights or Great Expectations, I can look them in the eye and say yes, but that's only because back in the '80s, someone took the trouble to publish them in comic book form :D These days I read Pratchett.

gte910h 17y ago

Don't read the classics of literature. Read the modern day classics or even Genre classics; you will relate to them much more

telemachos 17y ago
Just my two cents (and I didn't vote on your comment one way or the other), but that's an awfully big generalization. I put down a list of my must tries on this thread, and maybe you should do the same. People vary so much in their tastes that it's easier to point to the good than say "Don't read" this or that.
- sketerpot 17y ago
  Even so, I think it's useful to try to remove some of the mystique around old classics. I'm not saying there isn't some great stuff there -- I'm sure there is -- but it's hard to disentangle greatness from snobbishness.
- gte910h 17y ago
  A great deal of classics require a boatload of history and context to enjoy. For instance: Most of Dickens is about 3x more interesting when you know the history of England for the timespan as well as the Poor laws and all that. Additionally it's very important to know Dickens was paid by the word (so if it feels like a section can be skipped, it likely can). For modern classics, you already have most of the context and history, so you don't have accessibility issues. I'm not saying "Don't read the classics" I'm saying "Start reading modern fiction which is considered a classic, even genre classics". Once people catch the reading (fiction) bug, they eventually try a classic or two.

sailormoon 17y ago

You should try reading some science fiction. It's all well and good to learn about the day to day startup business stuff, but science fiction will give you ideas about what that startup should be doing in the first place! My favourites are Neal Stephenson and Iain Banks. I always feel like I gained far more from their books than I put into them. Everyone's different of course but they're two authors I can wholeheartedly recommend.