4 ms·
I seems that reading 100 books a year as a goal will filter out lot of books that might be too long/difficult. For example. Would you take "Gödel, Escher, Bach"
by jyriand 9y ago
I seems that reading 100 books a year as a goal will filter out lot of books that might be too long/difficult. For example. Would you take "Gödel, Escher, Bach" into your reading list when it's obvious that reading this book with some understanding retained will take lot of time? Instead of 100 books a year I would go for some specific author and his works, trying to read everything by them if possible and let these authors lead you to next authors etc. etc.
For example. I was interested in psychology, this led me to Carl G. Jung, this led me to gnosticism, this led me to Philip K. Dick etc. And now I'm mostly reading his fiction.
This seems like an organic path of discovery, instead of constructing artificial list of possible books that might interest you.
- cadlin 9y agoI would just point out that "Gödel, Escher, Bach" is one of the books he read this year. As is Anna Karenina, which took me several months of devoted attention to read.
- georgeecollins 9y agoThose are two of my all time favorite books. I don't know anything about you but I bet you are a great person!
- erasemus 9y agoYes and the mere fact of reading doesn't imply an engagement with the content, which can't be forced. One can imagine hearing the words of one hundred audiobooks playing at 1.5x speed in the background, but, like an inane radio talk show, not listened to very closely. Then there's Sturgeon's Law, which implies that most reading is just skimming/searching for the good stuff. Besides, Arthur C Clarke boasted that the true intellectual reads a book every day :-/
- zwieback 9y agoAgreed, I was on a Charlotte Bronte kick this year - can't read her novels in 2 or 3 days.
- forrestbrazeal 9y agoI can't read 100 enormous books in a year - not without making serious life changes. But I can read 20 or 30 really big, impactful books (examples from this year: Godel, Escher, Bach; A Secular Age; Anna Karenina; Chernow's life of Washington) and 70 other books that may not be as impressive, but provide significant value for a shorter investment of time. I'd put books like Cal Newport's "Deep Work" in this category. It's not an either/or proposition. You can read for quantity and quality.