5 ms·

Very insightful article. I find it crazy how few people I know read. Successful people seem to unanimously agree with the article that books are "one of the bes

Very insightful article. I find it crazy how few people I know read. Successful people seem to unanimously agree with the article that books are "one of the best ways to engage with the world, become a better person and understand life’s questions, big and small". From Warren Buffett[0] to patio11[1] to Bill Gates[2] to Patrick/John Collison [3][4] it seems incredibly rare to find a successful investor/CEO/founder who _doesn't_ read. Yet for some reason almost no one (especially not my friends in their early 20s!) reads. I'd like to understand why, if anyone has any ideas? I think the obvious argument is social media and shortening attention spans, but it's probably more nuanced than that. [0] Warren Buffett apparently spends 80% of his day reading [1] "This makes buying books a stupidly high ROI, assuming you read and get value out of them." from https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/investing-for-geeks https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/investing... [2] Bill Gates reads a book a week, from http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-favorite-books-2015-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-favorite-books-201... [3]http://www.johncollison.ie/2013reading.html http://www.johncollison.ie/2013reading.html [4]https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf By the way, I'm working on a tool that makes it easier to keep track of what you're reading and discover who's read what. I'd love to chat with any active readers on HN and hear about your reading pain points (I'm at me@tristanhomsi.com ).

pnathan 10y ago
I read a good deal more than my peer group; my current reading queue is more measured in feet at this pages, and I expect to get through it. I'm radically uninterested in 'social' or 'web' as it pertains to reading. A command line tool that interacts with org-mode to take notes and serve as a memex UI would be useful to manage sourcing and linkage of ideas.
- tristanho 10y ago
  I agree with your point on 'social' (although perhaps not 'web' ha), GoodReads seems to have the social end of reading pretty well fleshed out. What's not really solved right now, imo, is the organization of what you're reading and what to read next. Goodreads does a pretty awful job of this. A command line tool is definitely interesting! Although you wouldn't be able to access your "reading list" from a phone/anywhere. I find a lot of the time while on the go someone tells me about a book and I want to save it for later immediately.
  - pnathan 10y ago
    there are hacks to get around that sort of thing. :-) email-self, etc.

pnathan 10y ago

I read a good deal more than my peer group; my current reading queue is more measured in feet at this pages, and I expect to get through it. I'm radically uninterested in 'social' or 'web' as it pertains to reading. A command line tool that interacts with org-mode to take notes and serve as a memex UI would be useful to manage sourcing and linkage of ideas.

tristanho 10y ago
I agree with your point on 'social' (although perhaps not 'web' ha), GoodReads seems to have the social end of reading pretty well fleshed out. What's not really solved right now, imo, is the organization of what you're reading and what to read next. Goodreads does a pretty awful job of this. A command line tool is definitely interesting! Although you wouldn't be able to access your "reading list" from a phone/anywhere. I find a lot of the time while on the go someone tells me about a book and I want to save it for later immediately.
- pnathan 10y ago
  there are hacks to get around that sort of thing. :-) email-self, etc.