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Brilliant article,but I'll give a simpler factor as well - people read too many damn books! Not reading too much per se but just too many books! That combined w

Brilliant article,but I'll give a simpler factor as well - people read too many damn books! Not reading too much per se but just too many books! That combined with the fact that most books are bloated crap (because the author is incentivized to make a book out of what should be a New Yorker article at best), means that most people can't even see the point because they've been ricocheted around a concept by a single opinionated person for way too long. For this reason I avoid reading books for the most part, and probably read one book a year at best. My to-read list is short and highly scrutinized - I probably spend days making sure a book is worth the time and memory investment. Once I apply that logic, every book I've read has been extremely rewarding and I can at least write a few thousand word summary of each. I also constantly find instances in real life when I can use anecdotes from these books and people are surprised that I remember them. It also helps that for almost every book I deliberately sought out the best tome in the topic I wanted to learn more from. My reading list from the past 5 years or so: 1. Making of the atomic bomb by Richard Rhodes 2. Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman 3. On Writing by Stephen King 4. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaccson 5. The Logic of Chance by Eugene Koonin 6. GEB (gave up on this one though)

watwut 6y ago
If you read only one book per year and most of them are old, how could you possibly know that "most books are bloated crap"?
- macando 6y ago
  Not the author of the comment. There was a time when I was reading and trying to read many non-fiction books. After some time I started noticing that many of them are padded with mantras and useless fluff. Most of them would make great 20-page essays and nothing more.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Doesn't it has to do with the way you select non-fiction books? I don't mean it as "you are doing it wrong", but more that if you select from certain popular lists you get exactly that, because they are primary written to feel good while you read it and convince you author is right. If you read history written by historians, you get completely different experience. Or if you read "for dummies" series.
    - macando 6y ago
      You are right, I'm talking about the popular and relatively easy to digest but can still learn you plenty non-fiction books. On Writing from a comment above is a great example of that. A window into the mind of a writing genius. Not a single line in that book is wasted. Light in style, but heavy in insights. The books you mentioned are heavy in style and heavy in insights and facts. Unfortunately, I can't afford to dedicate one year of my life decoding the magnum opus of a famous Shakespeare expert that would probably teach me more about writing than any other book.
      - watwut 6y ago
        > The books you mentioned are heavy in style and heavy in insights and facts. For dummies series are not heavy in insights and facts. You have to put non-zero effort and it takes more time to read, but they do good job as introduction for someone who knows nothing. For writing skill, I liked how "Style Toward Clarity" is written. Each chapter contains a rule. You can read the chapter and then try to incorporate that rule into your writing. Once you feel confident, you can move to another chapter. It is not window into genius, but it is readable and rules are easy to apply. By history from historians I mean for example "Third Reich Trilogy" by Richard Evans or "The Rebelious life of Mrs. Rosa Parks". Both were quite readable. They contained stories that helped me remember what was written in them. I do not remember all the details from them, but apparently I remember enough to catch quite a lot of myths and untruths that are thrown around in forums. I generally remember how Third Reich functioned as a system. I expected the books by historians to be heavy, but they turned out to not be. I read online reviews before buying. Another group of books that I think made me learn reasonably well were memoirs of (say Jewish survivors), the narratives of escaped slaves like Frederick Douglass and so on. You do end up remembering how the system functioned, probably because human brain is good at remembering stories. You wont remember exact name of this or that character, but it does not matter.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  I have read a few chapters and given up on more numerous books for sure!
carlmr 6y ago
I can only second your reading list's #2 and #4, they both left a lasting impression on me. I did read the Feynman one in 4 days though, you can really breeze through it, and because of its entertainment value the ideas really do stick. The Steve Jobs biography took me a lot longer, I really enjoyed it, but it was more something where I picked it up every once in a while over the course of 2-3 months.

watwut 6y ago

If you read only one book per year and most of them are old, how could you possibly know that "most books are bloated crap"?

macando 6y ago
Not the author of the comment. There was a time when I was reading and trying to read many non-fiction books. After some time I started noticing that many of them are padded with mantras and useless fluff. Most of them would make great 20-page essays and nothing more.
- watwut 6y ago
  Doesn't it has to do with the way you select non-fiction books? I don't mean it as "you are doing it wrong", but more that if you select from certain popular lists you get exactly that, because they are primary written to feel good while you read it and convince you author is right. If you read history written by historians, you get completely different experience. Or if you read "for dummies" series.
  - macando 6y ago
    You are right, I'm talking about the popular and relatively easy to digest but can still learn you plenty non-fiction books. On Writing from a comment above is a great example of that. A window into the mind of a writing genius. Not a single line in that book is wasted. Light in style, but heavy in insights. The books you mentioned are heavy in style and heavy in insights and facts. Unfortunately, I can't afford to dedicate one year of my life decoding the magnum opus of a famous Shakespeare expert that would probably teach me more about writing than any other book.
    - watwut 6y ago
      > The books you mentioned are heavy in style and heavy in insights and facts. For dummies series are not heavy in insights and facts. You have to put non-zero effort and it takes more time to read, but they do good job as introduction for someone who knows nothing. For writing skill, I liked how "Style Toward Clarity" is written. Each chapter contains a rule. You can read the chapter and then try to incorporate that rule into your writing. Once you feel confident, you can move to another chapter. It is not window into genius, but it is readable and rules are easy to apply. By history from historians I mean for example "Third Reich Trilogy" by Richard Evans or "The Rebelious life of Mrs. Rosa Parks". Both were quite readable. They contained stories that helped me remember what was written in them. I do not remember all the details from them, but apparently I remember enough to catch quite a lot of myths and untruths that are thrown around in forums. I generally remember how Third Reich functioned as a system. I expected the books by historians to be heavy, but they turned out to not be. I read online reviews before buying. Another group of books that I think made me learn reasonably well were memoirs of (say Jewish survivors), the narratives of escaped slaves like Frederick Douglass and so on. You do end up remembering how the system functioned, probably because human brain is good at remembering stories. You wont remember exact name of this or that character, but it does not matter.
ramraj07 6y ago
I have read a few chapters and given up on more numerous books for sure!

carlmr 6y ago

I can only second your reading list's #2 and #4, they both left a lasting impression on me. I did read the Feynman one in 4 days though, you can really breeze through it, and because of its entertainment value the ideas really do stick. The Steve Jobs biography took me a lot longer, I really enjoyed it, but it was more something where I picked it up every once in a while over the course of 2-3 months.