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Is it just me or do other people struggle to read these kinds of very technical books? It's not that I don't comprehend, it's that my brain finds it boring and

• banana_maker 5y ago
  Deep, focused reading is a muscle that you need to work on. There isn’t a real answer other than practice, and focus on delayed gratification. We skim websites/articles because there is so much information out there, and not all of it is useful. I skim articles and then go back to fully read them once I make sure they’re actually worth the time. Same with some books, but books generally are worth it since they went through the publishing process, etc.
  • zatkin 5y ago
    I had this exact problem. I set a single New Years Resolution goal to build this muscle: 12 books in this year. I’ve read 22 now. What compels me to keep reading is the Reading Insights Streak feature in Kindle. It’s like a little reminder I can always check on to see if I’ve read today or not.
    • nsomaru 5y ago
      It seems like if you need to remind yourself if you’ve read today or not you aren’t doing “deep reading”. Schopenhauer’s essay “On Reading” is instructive here. He recommends reading fewer books but going deeper into them.
      • zatkin 5y ago
        While listening to Derek Sivers and Shane Parish talk about reading, I found Derek's comment to be, what I think, is a way to 'go deeper': assuming you've made highlights in a book, when you finish it, spend time thinking about each highlight. Take unnecessary words out of the highlighted text. Get to the core of the words that really triggered you to think different. I've yet to do this.
  • sriku 5y ago
    This is right, however we also need to acknowledge the prevalence of books which put forth some good ideas, but which perhaps can be summarized in a page or so. Instead they choose to labor on and on around the same point(s) without adding much. A book that definitely wasn't in the category I described above (for me) was John Ousterhout's Philosophy of Software Design - https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Software-Design-John-Ousterhout-ebook/dp/B07N1XLQ7D https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Software-Design-John-Ouste... . I haven't run into software design/tech books like that very often.
    • janto 5y ago
      From the reviews it sounds mainly from the OO/Java and heavy design up front paradigm and not very Agile / test driven. Is that fair? I'd really like a philosophically minded book that integrates these relatively newer approaches.
      • benji-york 5y ago
        I consider myself very agile/test-driven-leaning and I got a lot out of the book. It provided nice restatements of many things I've vaguely thought over the years and some nice new ideas.
      • sriku 5y ago
        The book came out of Ousterhout's course on software design where he reviews student code as they work on a significant problem - building a text editor. There is very little (if any) material out there of this nature that goes much beyond personal opinion (usually under the guise of experience) and sloganeering. This one though, is a hearty dive into the delectable details of design.
    • baranoff 5y ago
      Second that book! I have read dozens of technical books, but none come close in practical wisdom. If you have been in the industry and worked on large projects you will find it very relevant. I hope it is also as relevant and easy to understand for people who do not have many years of experience already.
  • underdeserver 5y ago
    I actually find the opposite. Many books belabor the point and take a chapter to explain what a paragraph could. It might sometimes be useful - for example, to explain a scenario to a newbie who can't relate from their own experience - but for someone who's been in the industry for a while, most of that information is just not useful.
    • pastage 5y ago
      Called US writing style over here, just being overly verbose. Course literature, e.g. Calculus, suffers from this. It is a style in which you wax on and drive home the point by repetition. This style is popular nowdays and finding books that succintcly describes a subject is hard. This is mostly because you need to have common ground, and writing for the smallest common denominator is better.
      • underdeserver 5y ago
        I actually think Calculus textbooks are justified in being long. he material is just so hard to grasp for newbies that giving you more and more examples sort of provides you with more time to digest the ideas in the background. Many students need that at that stage in their studies.
      • Breza 5y ago
        Writing succinctly is a difficult skill that requires practice. The US government has put a lot of work into making things easier to understand in recent years. I have a Masters in Public Administration. My professors hammered home the idea that lawmakers and the public aren't going to read your 50 page policy analysis, so matter how brilliant it is. My final paper in Project Management class was worth 25% of my final grade and had a one-page limit. It's one of the most difficult projects I've ever had. If you're interested in learning more about this style of writing, check out plainlanguage.gov.
    • _n_b_ 5y ago
      Relatedly, but I've always wished there were a series of books like, "I'm Already a Programmer but I'd Like to Learn ____" Trying to pick up a book about a new programming language that is trying to explain the concept of an 'array' or whatever is annoying--I wish there was something to just lay out (still in a thoughtful and guided way) the concepts I needed to understand for that language based on already knowing several others.
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• pkrumins 5y ago
  I agree that many of these books are hard and super boring to read. That's why I always recommend books that are written in easy and accessible style, such as The Little Schemer, The New Turning Omnibus, and Programming Pearls (not Perl but Pearls by Jon Bentley). Or, books that are written in problem-hint-solution style, such as The Little Book of Semaphores and To Mock a Mockingbird. These are so fun and easy to read.
  • cinntaile 5y ago
    Those are completely different books than what the blog post focuses on. Yours are solely focused on learning tech/maths.
• pvarangot 5y ago
  I tend to gravitate to pen and paper when I’m not zoning into a book and either draw charts on a notebook or write small notes into post-its I stick to the book.
• pkukkapalli 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm the same way. I've gotten better at it though by "practicing." For me, it's the same process as strength training. You need progressive overload. Start with easy to read attention capturing books, and slowly progress to harder and harder books.
• sanderjd 5y ago
  Honestly my problem with books like the ones in this list is that they aren't very technical. It's similar to business books and self help books for me, I feel like there isn't any concrete information, just anecdotal stories that I only find semi-interesting. I find myself zoning out while reading them. And I'm not saying the advice isn't good! I just struggle to stay engaged with it.
• mjrbrennan 5y ago
  It's not just you. I have a terrible time trying to get through technical / programming books, they put me to sleep. Not everyone learns the same way and that's okay. I have no problem getting through huge fiction books, so it's not a "book problem".
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• wokwokwok 5y ago
  You don’t need to read these books end to end. The a builds on b builds on c style of learning is only one way of learning things, and in many cases, the foundations (a, b) serve you no real value. Just jump to the sections that interest you (c) and go back to previous sections if you feel like you’ve lost track of what they’re talking about. For example, the first 20 pages of ‘Remote’ cover why remote working is good. It is intended for people who are considering if remote working is suitable. If that’s not relevant to you, do not waste your time reading it. Of course, you still have to actually sit and read the chapters that interest you… but, if you struggle with that for the chapters you’re actually interested in perhaps a more project based (do a thing, use references from book) approach, or notes based (treat book as study text, rewrite it as your own notes) might work for you. …but, don’t feel bad. These are super boring ass books with a few interesting parts to them.
  • criddell 5y ago
    Books have been written on how to read a book. Often, it’s some variant of starting with studying the table of contents then doing a fast first pass of the text. That’s usually a pretty good way of figuring out where to start.
    • playpause 5y ago
      > doing a fast first pass of the text Does that mean reading it end to end?
      • criddell 5y ago
        Sometimes yes but not always. It depends on the book.
• rmk 5y ago
  None of these books are very technical in nature. Some of them are, in fact, as far as you can get from technical, e.g., Explain the Cloud like I'm Ten. If you can't read books, then you are missing out on a lot. It's important to be able to read books (and work through large portions of them). Start reading books by reading fiction, then transition into nonfiction books (that are closer to fiction at first, e.g., history), finally transitioning into long-form technical books. If your budget permits, buy a long-form book on a technical topic and commit to reading it instead of just jumping on a website. For example, if you want to learn Kubernetes, just buy the Kubernetes book written by Beda et. al. I doubt any website will be better than that, and you will spend perhaps a week or two on a shallow read of the book, but you'll have found that you have a much better appreciation of the subject matter than you would have had you just glanced at a few website articles.
• phendrenad2 5y ago
  My trick is to keep a stack of these books around, and when I have some downtime I flip one open to a random page and read. I also keep a few in my car and on my desk at work.
• TeeMassive 5y ago
  I have the same kind of problem. It has gotten to the point that I couldn't even read sentences that make more than two statements. What helped me to go back on track was reading novels and constantly asking myself: did I understand the last sentences that I've just read?
  • criddell 5y ago
    I love William Gibson novels, but I have to read them twice. The first time I’m too confused. Only on the second pass do they make much sense to me.
• nesarkvechnep 5y ago
  Are these very technical really?
• crossroadsguy 5y ago
  I honestly think it’s alright. After spending 40-50 waking hours with tech in a week the last thing I want is extend the tech, or professional aspect, of my life more. I love reading literature though. Hours, engrossed. This might just be me. Tech is just a means to pay the bills for me - there’s no passion, hatred, love involved here.
• dgellow 5y ago
  Have you tried audiobooks? It helps me a lot to do something boring, like cleaning the kitchen or emptying/filling the dishwasher, while I consume content. Somehow when my body is doing something in automated mode I can focus well on my thoughts or audio/video content. Audiobooks and podcasts are perfect for this, videos are a bit more difficult as you’re likely to miss something, and text content is not adapted at all.
  • moffkalast 5y ago
    Some people seems to find audiobooks and podcasts fantastic, but I think it's somewhat correlated with your multitasking capability. If I go on a walk listening to a podcast or have it on in the background while working on something else I absorb only like 5% of it because I can't focus on it. As such it's useless for me unless I literally lay back in bed and listen to it. At that point I might as well just read something.
    • dgellow 5y ago
      Interesting, I have the opposite issue :) I cannot just sit and listen without doing anything, I need to be doing something with my body to be able to stay focus on an audio feed. I mean, I can do it but I won't be able to keep my attention on the audio content. When I bike, walk, or do laundry, no problem at all!
  • goodpoint 5y ago
    I've never found a podcast that is not full of idle chatter. Admittedly I gave up searching after trying some astonishingly dull ones. The only exception was a Linux kernel podcast but the format was really unsuitable for the topic. Do you have any good technical podcast to recommend?
    • dgellow 5y ago
      CppCast is awesome, even if you're not a C++ developer: https://cppcast.com/ https://cppcast.com/ "Algorithms + Data structures = programs": https://adspthepodcast.com/ https://adspthepodcast.com/ Crypto Critics' Corner may be my favorite podcast: https://cryptocriticscorner.com/ https://cryptocriticscorner.com/ Anything from microbe.tv: https://www.microbe.tv/science-shows/ https://www.microbe.tv/science-shows/. They have podcasts covering evolution, microbiology, neuroscience, parasitism, virology, urban agriculture, and more. Lot of stuff to dig into, you can try and see which one you like. Not technical, but I like to listen to Startup Therapy, I like how they openly talk about failures and mistakes: https://adspthepodcast.com/ https://adspthepodcast.com/
• wodenokoto 5y ago
  I totally agree, to the point where I’m skeptical about people saying they’ve read something cover to cover. Someone once recommended me to start at the back of each chapter and do the the problems and only read the chapter or even parts of the chapter for problems I couldn’t solve. It comes with its own set of drawbacks but it does help with getting through text books where the author was paid by per letter.
  • nevster 5y ago
    It's not that hard. I try to spend 10 minutes a day reading some sort of technical book. Just set a timer and do it. I don't always get around to it. Here's a list of the various tech books I've read cover to cover over the last couple of decades: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5348644-neville-ridley-smith?shelf=technical https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5348644-neville-ridley...
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  • Aeolun 5y ago
    Is not that hard, you just start at the front and make your way to the back. For the really good books you’ll actually reach the end.
• DocTomoe 5y ago
  Reading attention is a skill that can be trained ... and forgotten. When I was a kid, I read books by the meter, regular at the local library. At age 35, after life happened and after I was immersed in quick internet articles, I realised I haven't finished a book in ages. Which made me slowly read more, having that extra page after "mental exhaustion", slowly working my way up to a while chapter ... trying to get back into the habit. Now at age 41, I read long stuff again - best decision I've made. But I am under no illusion that I won't fall back into bit-sized consumption if I would stop keeping it up.
• ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  It doesnt detract from your general point but I dont think any of these recommended books would qualify as very technical. Pragmatic Programmer for example could be thought of as a very curated list of blog articles. Great book, but also not intimidating or deeply technical in that sense.
• liam_odo 5y ago
  Not a dev, sysadmin, but I agree, I find technical books exceptionally boring. My example is from the Windows Internals books, it’s a great book, but I don’t think the authors could write it in a “gripping” way, that’s just technical books. What I do however be it books or video is chunks, takes MUCH longer to do but I find for me it sticks, so if in my learning season (I do bursts of learning, burn out leave it for a couple of months, rinse repeat), - Read a section or chapter - Make quick, rapid notes in my notes app (or notebook, I use bear but whatever suits yourself) - Once I’ve done, go to sleep (I normally study at night, my brains more in a learning mode then for me) - Maybe at dinner time (at work) I go through my notes, if it’s something I feel may benefit my colleagues I make a brief PowerPoint, I try to translate it into a less technical write up, not everyone is super technical, it’s just a job to them!. I have a terrible memory for learning, I remember things long term great, short term not so much, so I reference my notes a lot, it’s essentially my mind map/bank. Video learning is very subjective, I’m currently learning Cisco Umbrella and it’s very boring to me, the creators voice is very mono tone and boring to the point I’ve nearly fallen asleep, but other creators (mostly in the Microsoft MVP zone) are very lively, a good mix of demos and theory that keep me engaged and actively want to learn, Pluralsight is the same, keeps me awake and motivated, I found CBT a little on the boring side in comparison.
• throwaway1988-5 5y ago
  Found out that I have ADHD. Never managed to read any books about programming, after a few pages my brain starts making up excuses to do other things and I start rereading the same paragraph over and over again. No issues doing the actual programming, could sit for hours on end without any issues. One nifty thing about my ADHD is that something that was super interesting can become dull as hell. For no apparent reason. Issues with focus, staying on task and motivation are generic issues that everyone has. Just like everyone gets sad or down sometimes. When it becomes a constant problem that affects your life, that's when it becomes a depression and needs treatment. ADHD is similar, except that it doesn't really come and go but is more of an undulating constant.
  • throwaway1988-5 5y ago
    A little trick for technical articles that I've found is to use screen readers.
    • loves_mangoes 5y ago
      Screen readers work great, for me it's my phone. On my desktop I'd be getting distracted and bored in about two paragraphs. Even if I try to come back to the article, there's invariable 3 other things that I'm switching between. On my phone I've read 250k word books cover to cover, same books I could never read on a PC. Attention is weird like that. Another trick is getting your dopamine* externally. There's an association between ADHD and substance abuse, and I can see why. Pharmacology is a cheat code: a few hours of infinite motivation, will power, and attention. Unfortunately, when people start needing a substance just to feel normal, that is the definition of an addiction. (* More complicated than just Dopamine or Serotonin, both seem to play a role. Medecine has not solved this one yet.)
      • amelius 5y ago
        > Unfortunately, when people start needing a substance just to feel normal, that is the definition of an addiction. If they would otherwise not feel normal and there are no negative side effects, is that a problem?
• wiseowise 5y ago
  > I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info No, your brain just tricked you. It trained you into thinking that you're doing rapid research of useful info, while it just looks for path of least resistence.
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• aesyondu 5y ago
  Same. What I did was to limit (minimum and maximum) myself to 1 chapter/section per day of a singular book that I decided to focus on. That way it becomes a habit. Minimum means that I need to finish it that day no matter what. I put a maximum because I found through trial and error that if I push myself too hard, even if a topic is interesting, I burn out quickly and procrastinate, sometimes for months, before continuing reading said book. And that is worst case scenario for me.
• goodpoint 5y ago
  Don't blame yourself if a book is verbose and tedious. Most books (and youtube videos) are 10% information and 90% padding.
• fergonco 5y ago
  I read novels just to reduce the pace of my brain. Maybe your brain does not need to work like that.
• analog31 5y ago
  I admit that I got through a lot of technical books by learning things in a classroom. I don't subscribe to the "children have different ways of learning," but I don't think I would have survived my college majors (math and physics) had I tried to learn them on my own from books, even good books. On the other hand, I taught myself electronics and programming from a combination of books and just trying things. Maybe trying things is a different kind of classroom in a sense. Certainly a different teacher: Mother Nature, who takes no crap from cocky teenagers.
• d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  I don't know why but I've always loved reading technical content cover to cover. It started with cereal boxes when I was a kid and I would read ALL of the text. In my teens it was MaximumPC and 4Wheeler magazine that I would read cover to cover. Now I buy random tech books for things I want to know about like Hadoop, KVM virtualization, Code Complete, etc.
• mohoromitch 5y ago
  I personally think that it goes deeper than just the ability to read and absorb. You to ask, and understand the motivations _for_ reading something, otherwise it's going to feel like a chore. I just finished "How to Take Smart Notes" and it seriously changed how I view readings like this. Where it's not for a short term gain, but rather an incremental increase in my knowledge base. The content may not be super relevant immediately, but the book and (really simple) methodology of taking notes on these readings and graphing relationships between concepts means you're slowly building a network of knowledge that grows and becomes more powerful over time. I used to but now it feels like a fun game to me.
• archsurface 5y ago
  I suspect you didn't look at the article - I was caught off guard, they're not technical. It's not a list I would go near.
• b3morales 5y ago
  Something to try is to accept the lack of focus, and when it happens, just switch to skimming. One of two things will happen: you'll realize the information isn't that important or interesting, or something will catch and you'll become re-engaged. In the first case, you can always revisit the material in the future, if you come across a situation where it seems like it might be useful.
• thecleaner 5y ago
  None of these books are very technical tbh. They usually describe principles in simple language (big plus IMO) so they could be consumed in a way you would read a novel. As for having trouble reading difficuly texts try this - read two pages. Try to recall what you read. Then try to connect it with what you already know. You only need to do it for the fundamentals not every sentence and it will help build up flow.