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I read books very rarely because embarrassingly I find it difficult. My job is basically skim reading docs, so when I try to read a book I find myself going int
by c7DJTLrn 5y ago
I read books very rarely because embarrassingly I find it difficult. My job is basically skim reading docs, so when I try to read a book I find myself going into autopilot and read pages upon pages without actually absorbing anything. I find it hard to read anything with a low information density in general.
My last book was Steve Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson, which I found interesting, but I don't remember a great deal about it because it just isn't really relevant to my life.
I've come to the conclusion that I don't really have a 'need' to read books anyway. If one day I really want to read something then I will, but I'm not going to actively encourage, or force myself.
- halfdan 5y agoIt took me a good week of really focussing on reading and comprehension to get my brain rewired to going slowly. I was very much in the same boat of constantly skimming through paragraphs of sci-fi books without actually taking in what I was reading.
- godot 5y agoI find myself (also embarrassingly) somewhat aligned with what you describe as well, both the point about going into autopilot, and having read interesting books but don't remember a great deal because they aren't relevant to my life. An additional point I'd make is that I find that in recent years, the books that I did enjoy tend to be written by people who already have an online presence (e.g. Randall Munroe, author of xkcd, or Jorge Cham/Daniel Whiteson, author of phd comics). I think there's something about the voice and tone of these writings that better match what I enjoy reading. Perhaps reading those books makes me feel like I'm reading something online that I like?