3 ms·
I'd argue against reading so many books for two reasons: 1. So many popular non-fiction books these days resolve around a single idea, which would fit in a blo
by WA 9y ago
I'd argue against reading so many books for two reasons:
1. So many popular non-fiction books these days resolve around a single idea, which would fit in a blog post. But then, they're expanded with a lot of fluff. Personal stories, other stories, anecdotes, the author's motivation to do whatever. I tend to search for "$BOOKNAME summary" before even buying most books.
For example, recently I "read" 'On Intelligence'. It has many good ratings, but man, it is unnecessarily repetitive. You can easily only read chapter 6 and nothing else. Or only read the popular highlights from the Kindle edition and be done with it.
2. Reading all that stuff is still mostly entertainment. It might feel like learning something new, but 99% of it is forgotten anyways. Reading with the purpose of improving oneself requires action – to actually implement the given advice or knowledge. Obviously, you can't implement the advice from 50 books in a year. So why bother at all with all those books?
I read less, but try to be more serious about the content.
- michaelmcmillan 9y agoI think that's a problem with publishers. They simply haven't found a business model that works well for short books - which results in authors padding their ideas with babble.
- wastedhours 9y agoOne person's babble is another person's "context" though. I think most non-fiction books should have some kind of split between learnings and case studies, anecdotes, data, examples etc... That being said, an option to buy the TL;DR version and the expanded one should actually open up many more options for most publishers (a la most online ebooks and courses with multiple tiers).
- Chris2048 9y agoMaybe try blinkist.com? It even has 'On Intelligence' in its listing.
- staz 9y agoThe site has a Start Free Tial option but I can't find anywhere what it contains or how much I will have to pay afterwards
- DeanYeong 9y agoGreat point. I still read every word even I knew the core ideas in a book already. The purpose behind is to look at the same thing as a different identity, from a different identity. Yes, there is no point to rush, because you're RIGHT. I believe in implementation and taking action too.
- cromo 9y agoAs for your second point, I think that's somewhat covered by the last few sentences in the article - he makes short lists of what the book was about and the main takeaways. This makes the book a little more permanent, as you have some external memory you can look over to help recall more details.