6 ms·

I decided to read a book a day this year. So far I'm ahead at 336 and here are my counter opinions. "* It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 ti

by Paul_S 10y ago

I decided to read a book a day this year. So far I'm ahead at 336 and here are my counter opinions. "* It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once." Flat out no. Unless you're a freaking machine. Reading different books covering the same topic keeps me interested more. I don't mind the repetition then because I get the warm "I know that" feeling. "* Eyes that pay read better than eyes that don’t. Eyes that pay more read better than eyes that pay less. In other words, when you pay for a book or a course, you’ll dedicate more to it, so you’ll get more value from it." Total nonsense. I'm not paying my friends or the library to borrow their books. Next you'll be telling me hardback books transfer ideas better. Well, my e-reader has a hard case. And I paid 300 quid for it. "* If you read ~1h (almost) every day, you’ll be able to read 60-80 books per year." If you use all your idle time you can read a book a day. Cooking? You mean reading and cooking. Commuting? Reading. Sitting on the toilet? You get the idea. Waiting for the kettle? Seconds add up! I agree with the rest.

300 10y ago
Thanks for your comment Paul! Kudos for a book a day, just in my honest opinion, that's an overkill. I think it's really important to have time to think and make notes about what you read. Even re-reading the same books can often give you different insights, depending on your inner state, life circumstances, etc. I respect your opinion on your points, and I'll not argue those. I shared my insights, based on my experience, and I wish I knew some of them before much earlier - it would save me a lot of time. -Jovica
- Paul_S 10y ago
  The problem complicating re-reading "the best" book is how do you know which one is the best? Reading a new one has a non-zero chance of reading a better one. A variation on the secretary problem where interviewing can have a negative cost. As for a book a day being overkill - you're right, I'm not going to keep this up next year. Normally I read ~80 books but last year I was unemployed for several months and ended up reading >200 even though I was busy looking for work (which involves a lot travel and waiting around which is when I got religious about using my deadtime rather than "killing" time with HN) and I thought fuck it, I'll give it a go at which point I got hired within a month but wanted to see if I can keep going. It's getting really busy with deadlines but I'm confident I can catch up during christmas. For people wondering: yes, I have no family.
  - 300 10y ago
    Good question. I put quite a lot of effort to explore available books on the topic, but that would take another (much longer) blog post. Good luck with your quest! If you need some inspiration for books to read, check out this great list: https://sivers.org/book https://sivers.org/book
    - Paul_S 10y ago
      Open the page, sort by "best" and see how far up you have to go before you get to a book that doesn't get a negative review. As far as I can tell no one has this figured out yet and it's a no way of proving a program will stop without running it sort of a thing - all we need now is a name for this law relating to books.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Everything gets negative reviews - even if God Himself stepped down and put a poem on Amazon that was explicitly designed to trigger hidden backdoors in people's firmware to induce state of extreme pleasure, somebody would leave a negative review because they've only read second stanza while drunk, and decided it sucks. One has to get used to it, and learn not to flinch away from reading an occasional negative review to make sure whether it's just someone's very specific subjective opinion, or whether it can be a problem for many other readers too.
vijayr 10y ago
a book a day Wow! What kind of books are these? How long do you spend everyday reading?
- Paul_S 10y ago
  Unfortunately goodreads doesn't offer any kind of meaningful stats. I'm guessing it's 50/50 fact & fiction split but I could be wildly off. What goodreads does tell me is that 1/10 of them I rated 1 star. This is my biggest problem - I have not yet found any reliable way to find recommendations. I don't know how much time I spend reading, it's almost never exclusive reading time - it's almost always multitasking with something else. I spent at least 4 hours today and it's only mid-afternoon here. Limiting my HN time seems to work and HN is the only social media I'm on. I always have at least two books on the go and one of them is an audiobook so I can keep reading when I'm cycling, doing laundry, etc.
sotojuan 10y ago
I agree that it's really easy to find time for reading. For us in tech, just replace your HN/Reddit time with reading and you'll be surprised how much you can read!
- Paul_S 10y ago
  I have a strategically placed book at the office. Every time I go to get tea and I'm waiting for it to brew or waiting for the meeting to start I read a few pages. It sounds ridiculous but I'm confident I'll finish that book within a year - purely by adding up the brewing/waiting time.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Personally, books are why I don't mind having ~40 minute commute one-way to work in the city. I use public transport and read books. Of course, I try to read some more at other times too, but at least I have a guaranteed minimum of 5-6 hours of reading time each week. I'd be utterly mad if I had to commute that long by a non-self-driving car though.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> " It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once."* I think the author has a point. Maybe re-reading a book 5 times is not better than 5 different books, but re-reading it at least once is still a good investment. First, it turns out one doesn't remember all that much from the book after the first read. Second - and more important - when you're re-reading the book, you benefit from having the overall big picture in your head already, so you can re-evaluate earlier parts of the book using your knowledge about the whole.
kartan 10y ago
> "* It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once." I agree that it is expressed in a too strong way for me. I will probably say that it is better to read twice the best 5 books in a topic that to read 10 on that same topic. Variety helps, but repetition is also good for retaining ideas. And for me the "best" books are the ones that present that ideas more clearly. The value of re-reading probably depends on how good is your memory and varies for each individual. I like the combination of re-reading with reading more on the same topic to get knowledge.
- 300 10y ago
  True. I should have explained it better, and say that I didn't mean it literally. As you said, repetition is good to retain ideas. Also, I was able to get different ideas and insights from the same books, just based on my inner personal state, and my life circumstances at that point in time.
nathan_f77 10y ago
That sounds impossible to me. How can you possibly read one book every day, unless they're extremely short? I could imagine this being true if you dedicate something like 8-12 hours per day, but how do you have time for that?
- ashark 10y ago
  Hardy Boys/Goosebumps/Boxcar Children? That's about the most advanced literature I can imagine achieving 1/day with.
- Paul_S 10y ago
  That's what I thought too but no, it's totally doable (I am doing it after all) and the average page count according to goodreads is 357. I have no family, I work a 9-5 at a multinational and my only other hobby is bouldering. I use every spare moment to read. If you added up all your spare time every day you'd be surprised (clearly). It's not evenly distributed - I usually catch up over the weekend when I have loads of free time (2 days). Also it doesn't take 8 hours to read a book (at least not every one, fiction is pretty quick). Not even an audiobook (which are slower even when you speed them up x2.5)! Even if it took 8 hours on average (which might be right, I never actually tried to measure this) you could still read 9 books a week with 72 hours: ( (24 * 7) week - 40 work - (8 * 7) sleep ) / 8 hr/book = 9 books
  - kayoone 10y ago
    How about cooking, laundry, daily hygiene etc. It would be really hard reading all the time while doing that.
dxhdr 10y ago
Best 3 books out of the lot that you can recommend? Thanks!
- Paul_S 10y ago
  I'm happy to share. - "The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II" - "The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, books III-IV" - "The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, books V-VII" Even though these are genuinely the best books I've read this year and genuinely world-view altering that might be not what you're after. Here are 3 good books I'm happy to recommend instead: - "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945" by Tony Judt - "A History of Future Cities" by Daniel Brook - "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" by Carl Sagan (if you already read Pale Blue Dot which I appear to be late to the party on try "Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective" by Thomas Sowell) And if you're after fiction instead: - "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera - "The Cunning Man" by Robertson Davies - "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck That's a nice round 10 recommendations so let me have a bonus one for year 2015: - "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" You will never read the news the same way.
  - pas 10y ago
    Have you read Pinker: The Blank Slate, and Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty? And "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" by Samuel P. Huntington? Also, Gleick: Chaos? Oh, and for fiction the James S. A. Corey: The Expanse series, veeeery easy to read, normally funny, and quite clever.
    - Paul_S 10y ago
      Thanks, no. I'll start with "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" as it's the most controversial one (spread of reviews) and if I like it I'll keep going.
      - 10y ago

by Paul_S 10y ago

300 10y ago

Thanks for your comment Paul! Kudos for a book a day, just in my honest opinion, that's an overkill. I think it's really important to have time to think and make notes about what you read. Even re-reading the same books can often give you different insights, depending on your inner state, life circumstances, etc. I respect your opinion on your points, and I'll not argue those. I shared my insights, based on my experience, and I wish I knew some of them before much earlier - it would save me a lot of time. -Jovica

Paul_S 10y ago
The problem complicating re-reading "the best" book is how do you know which one is the best? Reading a new one has a non-zero chance of reading a better one. A variation on the secretary problem where interviewing can have a negative cost. As for a book a day being overkill - you're right, I'm not going to keep this up next year. Normally I read ~80 books but last year I was unemployed for several months and ended up reading >200 even though I was busy looking for work (which involves a lot travel and waiting around which is when I got religious about using my deadtime rather than "killing" time with HN) and I thought fuck it, I'll give it a go at which point I got hired within a month but wanted to see if I can keep going. It's getting really busy with deadlines but I'm confident I can catch up during christmas. For people wondering: yes, I have no family.
- 300 10y ago
  Good question. I put quite a lot of effort to explore available books on the topic, but that would take another (much longer) blog post. Good luck with your quest! If you need some inspiration for books to read, check out this great list: https://sivers.org/book https://sivers.org/book
  - Paul_S 10y ago
    Open the page, sort by "best" and see how far up you have to go before you get to a book that doesn't get a negative review. As far as I can tell no one has this figured out yet and it's a no way of proving a program will stop without running it sort of a thing - all we need now is a name for this law relating to books.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Everything gets negative reviews - even if God Himself stepped down and put a poem on Amazon that was explicitly designed to trigger hidden backdoors in people's firmware to induce state of extreme pleasure, somebody would leave a negative review because they've only read second stanza while drunk, and decided it sucks. One has to get used to it, and learn not to flinch away from reading an occasional negative review to make sure whether it's just someone's very specific subjective opinion, or whether it can be a problem for many other readers too.

vijayr 10y ago

a book a day Wow! What kind of books are these? How long do you spend everyday reading?

Paul_S 10y ago
Unfortunately goodreads doesn't offer any kind of meaningful stats. I'm guessing it's 50/50 fact & fiction split but I could be wildly off. What goodreads does tell me is that 1/10 of them I rated 1 star. This is my biggest problem - I have not yet found any reliable way to find recommendations. I don't know how much time I spend reading, it's almost never exclusive reading time - it's almost always multitasking with something else. I spent at least 4 hours today and it's only mid-afternoon here. Limiting my HN time seems to work and HN is the only social media I'm on. I always have at least two books on the go and one of them is an audiobook so I can keep reading when I'm cycling, doing laundry, etc.

sotojuan 10y ago

I agree that it's really easy to find time for reading. For us in tech, just replace your HN/Reddit time with reading and you'll be surprised how much you can read!

Paul_S 10y ago
I have a strategically placed book at the office. Every time I go to get tea and I'm waiting for it to brew or waiting for the meeting to start I read a few pages. It sounds ridiculous but I'm confident I'll finish that book within a year - purely by adding up the brewing/waiting time.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Personally, books are why I don't mind having ~40 minute commute one-way to work in the city. I use public transport and read books. Of course, I try to read some more at other times too, but at least I have a guaranteed minimum of 5-6 hours of reading time each week. I'd be utterly mad if I had to commute that long by a non-self-driving car though.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> " It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once."* I think the author has a point. Maybe re-reading a book 5 times is not better than 5 different books, but re-reading it at least once is still a good investment. First, it turns out one doesn't remember all that much from the book after the first read. Second - and more important - when you're re-reading the book, you benefit from having the overall big picture in your head already, so you can re-evaluate earlier parts of the book using your knowledge about the whole.

kartan 10y ago

> "* It’s much better to read the best book on the topic 5 times, than to read 5 different books on the topic once." I agree that it is expressed in a too strong way for me. I will probably say that it is better to read twice the best 5 books in a topic that to read 10 on that same topic. Variety helps, but repetition is also good for retaining ideas. And for me the "best" books are the ones that present that ideas more clearly. The value of re-reading probably depends on how good is your memory and varies for each individual. I like the combination of re-reading with reading more on the same topic to get knowledge.

300 10y ago
True. I should have explained it better, and say that I didn't mean it literally. As you said, repetition is good to retain ideas. Also, I was able to get different ideas and insights from the same books, just based on my inner personal state, and my life circumstances at that point in time.

nathan_f77 10y ago

That sounds impossible to me. How can you possibly read one book every day, unless they're extremely short? I could imagine this being true if you dedicate something like 8-12 hours per day, but how do you have time for that?

ashark 10y ago
Hardy Boys/Goosebumps/Boxcar Children? That's about the most advanced literature I can imagine achieving 1/day with.
Paul_S 10y ago
That's what I thought too but no, it's totally doable (I am doing it after all) and the average page count according to goodreads is 357. I have no family, I work a 9-5 at a multinational and my only other hobby is bouldering. I use every spare moment to read. If you added up all your spare time every day you'd be surprised (clearly). It's not evenly distributed - I usually catch up over the weekend when I have loads of free time (2 days). Also it doesn't take 8 hours to read a book (at least not every one, fiction is pretty quick). Not even an audiobook (which are slower even when you speed them up x2.5)! Even if it took 8 hours on average (which might be right, I never actually tried to measure this) you could still read 9 books a week with 72 hours: ( (24 * 7) week - 40 work - (8 * 7) sleep ) / 8 hr/book = 9 books
- kayoone 10y ago
  How about cooking, laundry, daily hygiene etc. It would be really hard reading all the time while doing that.

dxhdr 10y ago

Best 3 books out of the lot that you can recommend? Thanks!

Paul_S 10y ago
I'm happy to share. - "The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II" - "The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, books III-IV" - "The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, books V-VII" Even though these are genuinely the best books I've read this year and genuinely world-view altering that might be not what you're after. Here are 3 good books I'm happy to recommend instead: - "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945" by Tony Judt - "A History of Future Cities" by Daniel Brook - "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" by Carl Sagan (if you already read Pale Blue Dot which I appear to be late to the party on try "Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective" by Thomas Sowell) And if you're after fiction instead: - "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera - "The Cunning Man" by Robertson Davies - "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck That's a nice round 10 recommendations so let me have a bonus one for year 2015: - "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" You will never read the news the same way.
- pas 10y ago
  Have you read Pinker: The Blank Slate, and Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty? And "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" by Samuel P. Huntington? Also, Gleick: Chaos? Oh, and for fiction the James S. A. Corey: The Expanse series, veeeery easy to read, normally funny, and quite clever.
  - Paul_S 10y ago
    Thanks, no. I'll start with "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" as it's the most controversial one (spread of reviews) and if I like it I'll keep going.
    - 10y ago