4 ms·

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 th

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.

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.