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I thought for sure this essay would reference Pierre Bayard's really fun How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. Oh well! Anyway, I think there are at least
by karaterobot 4y ago
I thought for sure this essay would reference Pierre Bayard's really fun How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. Oh well!
Anyway, I think there are at least three kinds of reading.
The one where you skim some reviews and read twenty pages is one of them. You can do this in order to just be able to say you've read something without putting in the "work", but you can also do this as part of a serious study of some subject: For example, maybe I only need to read a specific chapter in a book to answer a question I have, or I only need to check every page that mentions a specific keyword related to what I'm studying.
Another way of reading is when you march through a book, page-by-page, as quickly as possible. When you get to the last page you say "done" and then you move on. A few months later, all you mat remember about the book is a outline of the plot, in a novel, or maybe one or two important points, in a non-fiction book.
(I think listening to books in audiobook format is another way of reading, but in practice it's often very close to this second form)
The last one is when you read the book, then think about it, then read it again, then read about it, then keep reading it over and over for the rest of your life.
The latter is much more rewarding, but my point is not that one is better than the other, but that all of these are separate activities that can legitimately be called reading. Maybe we need more words for reading.
- lysergia 4y agoIt’s worth having some form of takeaway from a book, even if it’s just one profound paragraph that resonated with you, and the rest can be filtered out. I mostly read self help, and have managed to boil some books down to a little kernel of truth that I use daily to help me navigate life. Holding a whole book in your head can be done.
- mlambie 4y agoThis is why I find, especially for self help books, reading a distilled summary may suffice. Often the Wikipedia page for the book has enough depth for me.
- Macha 4y agoAlternatively, books can be entertainment, and that's fine. This I think is a difference in the types of books read. I generally don't read self help books, my experiences in the past with many of them leaving me uninterested in the genre, and instead tend to mostly read novels, especially sci-fi/fantasy. It would rather negate the entertainment value, and would feel more like work, if I had to take notes for a book club style experience, though as evidenced by the popularity of book clubs, there's plenty of people who feel different.
- tapanjk 4y ago> The last one is when you read the book, then think about it, then read it again, then read about it, then keep reading it over and over for the rest of your life. Agree. Would love to see examples from people of books that fall in this category. I assume it is a short list for most people.
- erulabs 4y agoFor me it's Nietzsche's "Thus spoke Zarathustra". I'm a different person each time I get through certain sections of that book. That said, I'm sure one of the hundreds of unread books I own is equally life changing.
- ivad 4y agoNotes from Underground was the book that really pulled me into Dostoevsky (after initially reading C&P and disliking it - I doubtless missed quite a lot the first time through). Definitely in that category for me.
- berlinquin 4y ago"I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man." A good hook, but I had a tough time finishing Notes. The narrator really shows that yes, he is in fact a sick and spiteful man. Not one I'd want to pick up again. I got pulled into Dostoyevsky through Brothers K, which led me to Notes eventually. Do you know what translation of Notes you read? I think I read P&V, and if I read it again I'd want to try something else
- ivad 4y agoI've read Garnett and P&V and personally much prefer the Garnett translation! A nice comparison: https://web.archive.org/web/20131109182920/http://comparetranslations.com/index.php?page=2&id=241 https://web.archive.org/web/20131109182920/http://comparetra...
- sneak 4y agoMine (predictably): 1984 Stranger In A Strange Land The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress Time Enough For Love Friday The Crying Of Lot 49 Seveneves Neuromancer I’ve read all of these at least 4 times, with reading-about-them in between. I usually pick one up to re-read just a part of it, then I get sucked in and before I know it I’ve re-read the whole thing.
- tomxor 4y ago> The latter is much more rewarding, but my point is not that one is better than the other [...] I disagree that it's not better... The "march through a book, page-by-page, as quickly as possible" method is wasteful of your time. That just seems like a task for the sake of being able to say "i've read it", and even if someone is that pretentious, it's a pretty low return on investment - I say screw that, you can only read so many books in your life, read the ones that genuinely interest you at that moment in time. Even if you don't finish or read it front to back contiguously without large breaks, at least the content is meaningful to you while you read it, so you get the most from your time spent reading.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agomaybe should mention Pierre Menard who wrote a famous book he hadn't read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Quixote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...