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The claim “you’ve only got time to read a few thousand books” surprised me, but some back of the napkin math strongly supports it. Assuming it takes a week to r

by jbrot 5y ago

The claim “you’ve only got time to read a few thousand books” surprised me, but some back of the napkin math strongly supports it. Assuming it takes a week to read a book and 70 years of literacy only gives you time for around 3500 books. A more avid reader might average, say, 3 books a week—-but then you only get to around 10,000 books. Now, a monk might be able to read 30 books in a week and get to 100,000, but pragmatically “a few thousand” seems to be an accurate accounting for a person who doesn’t dedicate a large portion of their life towards reading.

MathematicalArt 5y ago
I recommend “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler. In short, not every sentence, paragraph, chapter, or even book is of equal informative importance. To read all literature as if everything is equally important is really a mistake. Once one recognizes this, it is then ideal to read only at the level of detail and focus as is required for the particular work. What does it mean to have read a book? To read every single word and symbol? To understand the key ideas and points? Is every book going to be one hundred percent new ideas to you or are there thematic riffs that allow you to shortcut portions of it without loss of understanding of the entire work?
- ordu 5y ago
  > What does it mean to have read a book? To read every single word and symbol? To understand the key ideas and points? To understand what the author thought at the time, what he was trying to say, what he had said really, how he came to his ideas, ... One cannot predict what he'll find in a book before book will be finished. You cannot know what you do not know. The only way is to read it through. Sometimes I read books twice in a row. From the title to the last page. With all the "thanks", with the contents section, even leafing through a section of literature. Because you never know what you might find. When I need just key ideas from a book I could find them in internet, because someone have them written in her blog. It would take, probably, 10 minutes to read, and why to bother myself with the book?
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    Agreed. I would not find this kind of life hack approach to reading satisfying. On occasion certainly but I pick up a book explicitly to inhabit it. I don't pick up books I don't wish to become apart of and have become apart of me. The first 200 pages of Moby Dick were phenomenal to me. The book really drops off when the chapters atomize into non-fiction and lose the story. But I was not going to miss one word of what happened to the Pequod or the friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg. It doesn't really pick that story up as I'd like but I wasn't going to risk it. Parts of 'Les Miserables' felt like a slog but it was worth it to truly inhabit the world. I'll probably never read a 1,000+ novel ever again but I wouldn't have read it any other way. For a reference book sure. They are often best digested out of order.

by jbrot 5y ago

MathematicalArt 5y ago

I recommend “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler. In short, not every sentence, paragraph, chapter, or even book is of equal informative importance. To read all literature as if everything is equally important is really a mistake. Once one recognizes this, it is then ideal to read only at the level of detail and focus as is required for the particular work. What does it mean to have read a book? To read every single word and symbol? To understand the key ideas and points? Is every book going to be one hundred percent new ideas to you or are there thematic riffs that allow you to shortcut portions of it without loss of understanding of the entire work?

ordu 5y ago
> What does it mean to have read a book? To read every single word and symbol? To understand the key ideas and points? To understand what the author thought at the time, what he was trying to say, what he had said really, how he came to his ideas, ... One cannot predict what he'll find in a book before book will be finished. You cannot know what you do not know. The only way is to read it through. Sometimes I read books twice in a row. From the title to the last page. With all the "thanks", with the contents section, even leafing through a section of literature. Because you never know what you might find. When I need just key ideas from a book I could find them in internet, because someone have them written in her blog. It would take, probably, 10 minutes to read, and why to bother myself with the book?
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  Agreed. I would not find this kind of life hack approach to reading satisfying. On occasion certainly but I pick up a book explicitly to inhabit it. I don't pick up books I don't wish to become apart of and have become apart of me. The first 200 pages of Moby Dick were phenomenal to me. The book really drops off when the chapters atomize into non-fiction and lose the story. But I was not going to miss one word of what happened to the Pequod or the friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg. It doesn't really pick that story up as I'd like but I wasn't going to risk it. Parts of 'Les Miserables' felt like a slog but it was worth it to truly inhabit the world. I'll probably never read a 1,000+ novel ever again but I wouldn't have read it any other way. For a reference book sure. They are often best digested out of order.