3 ms·

I'm sorry, but that seems like an absolutely miserable way to experience books.

by emmo 4y ago

tartoran 4y ago
Not all books are experience worthy, some are even frustrating to read cover to cover.
zahma 4y ago
I think something that went unsaid here is that readers have fundamentally different reasons to pick up a book. Someone like Tyler Cowen, or indeed many commenters here, are quite keen to absorb knowledge, and time may be limited. I enjoy reading for learning, but I also enjoy reading to quiet my mind, to practice focus, and to bring myself joy from the beauty of a tapestry of words. I agree with you that some of these objectives can’t be accomplished by ruthlessly discarding a book that doesn’t immediately captivate.
- emmo 4y ago
  You're right, that's absolutely valid. And there surely are plenty of non-fiction books that could be summed up in a few pages.
viburnum 4y ago
His career as a lobbyist for the Koch brothers requires him to never learn too much (“it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”).
- astrange 4y ago
  - crdrost 4y ago
    So like I don't appreciate this sort of thread normally, I feel like it pollutes our contexts. (Though I confess on some occasions saying to myself something like “this is going to get downvoted to hell, but I have the karma to afford that” so who am I to judge.) But in this case, I wanted to say thank you to the folks in this thread for a different reason. This sort of comment actually helps me get a sort of side channel of information for this really implausible claim that he reads 5 books a day. I have actually read five books a day for two days straight, it was intense. Like, “oh it's dark outside, I should probably eat something today” intense. The idea that you average that every day, goes from enthusiasm straight over to obsession. Voracious readers that I know tend to finish 100-200 books per year (which is also how they prefer to measure—who measures per day?!) so I don't think my personal experience is atypically slow. And it's like, I read this comment thread and now I have more context... Okay, if this person is mostly known for moderating a blog, first off I can mentally degrade the claim to just, bragging about yourself on the internet, so sure, probably exaggerated... Maybe only does these binges once a week, but really does binge five books a day, just doesn't sustain it every day. But second, I mean, maybe he really is reading the sort of stuff that only merits 5 seconds per page, “okay so this person is from that school, they are hitting the major talking points, yada yada yada, oh hey, here's one atypical idea for folks from there, do I think that they are likely to have a second big idea, no, close book and consider it read.” One misses a certain luxurious Joy from reading this way, but if one was not reading joyous work in the first place then that's fine. That in turn helps me better understand what the original article is trying to talk about, so kudos!
    - neffy 4y ago
      I´ll put this here, since it may also help slightly tangentially with the above (and likewise thanks for the thread). I worked in a large public library service as a teenager (before the internet), rotated around several libraries, and noticed there were several patterns to readers choices in all of the different libraries. Almost all readers would stick to one or possibly two genres, fiction or nonfiction (minority). For example westerns, detective stories, romances, etc., non-fiction, history (usually a fairly specific period, war, or service (naval combat for example)), pop-science, etc. Most people took 3 or 4 books out for a month (allowed period) and brought them back at the end of that period. And then each library would have 2 or 3 people at most who read voraciously across genres, fiction and non-fiction (although not the easy lit romance, western, etc. books), applied for extra borrowing privileges, and would bring all the books back typically within a week or two. There are many, many books out there that are well worth reading, and there are probably even more that aren't, but I suspect you have to read some of the latter to be able to get to where you not only appreciate the former, but can tell the difference by the book blurb/and or contents of first couple of pages.
- zetsurin 4y ago
  Is this true? I couldn't find anything on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen.. Did fine this https://littlesis.org/person/41539-Tyler_Cowen https://littlesis.org/person/41539-Tyler_Cowen
  - viburnum 4y ago
    Yeah, it's all out in the open. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center
paulpauper 4y ago
Why. Bailing out on bad books seems like a better way to read.

I'm sorry, but that seems like an absolutely miserable way to experience books.

by emmo 4y ago

I'm sorry, but that seems like an absolutely miserable way to experience books.

tartoran 4y ago

Not all books are experience worthy, some are even frustrating to read cover to cover.

zahma 4y ago

I think something that went unsaid here is that readers have fundamentally different reasons to pick up a book. Someone like Tyler Cowen, or indeed many commenters here, are quite keen to absorb knowledge, and time may be limited. I enjoy reading for learning, but I also enjoy reading to quiet my mind, to practice focus, and to bring myself joy from the beauty of a tapestry of words. I agree with you that some of these objectives can’t be accomplished by ruthlessly discarding a book that doesn’t immediately captivate.

emmo 4y ago
You're right, that's absolutely valid. And there surely are plenty of non-fiction books that could be summed up in a few pages.

viburnum 4y ago

His career as a lobbyist for the Koch brothers requires him to never learn too much (“it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”).

astrange 4y ago
- crdrost 4y ago
  So like I don't appreciate this sort of thread normally, I feel like it pollutes our contexts. (Though I confess on some occasions saying to myself something like “this is going to get downvoted to hell, but I have the karma to afford that” so who am I to judge.) But in this case, I wanted to say thank you to the folks in this thread for a different reason. This sort of comment actually helps me get a sort of side channel of information for this really implausible claim that he reads 5 books a day. I have actually read five books a day for two days straight, it was intense. Like, “oh it's dark outside, I should probably eat something today” intense. The idea that you average that every day, goes from enthusiasm straight over to obsession. Voracious readers that I know tend to finish 100-200 books per year (which is also how they prefer to measure—who measures per day?!) so I don't think my personal experience is atypically slow. And it's like, I read this comment thread and now I have more context... Okay, if this person is mostly known for moderating a blog, first off I can mentally degrade the claim to just, bragging about yourself on the internet, so sure, probably exaggerated... Maybe only does these binges once a week, but really does binge five books a day, just doesn't sustain it every day. But second, I mean, maybe he really is reading the sort of stuff that only merits 5 seconds per page, “okay so this person is from that school, they are hitting the major talking points, yada yada yada, oh hey, here's one atypical idea for folks from there, do I think that they are likely to have a second big idea, no, close book and consider it read.” One misses a certain luxurious Joy from reading this way, but if one was not reading joyous work in the first place then that's fine. That in turn helps me better understand what the original article is trying to talk about, so kudos!
  - neffy 4y ago
    I´ll put this here, since it may also help slightly tangentially with the above (and likewise thanks for the thread). I worked in a large public library service as a teenager (before the internet), rotated around several libraries, and noticed there were several patterns to readers choices in all of the different libraries. Almost all readers would stick to one or possibly two genres, fiction or nonfiction (minority). For example westerns, detective stories, romances, etc., non-fiction, history (usually a fairly specific period, war, or service (naval combat for example)), pop-science, etc. Most people took 3 or 4 books out for a month (allowed period) and brought them back at the end of that period. And then each library would have 2 or 3 people at most who read voraciously across genres, fiction and non-fiction (although not the easy lit romance, western, etc. books), applied for extra borrowing privileges, and would bring all the books back typically within a week or two. There are many, many books out there that are well worth reading, and there are probably even more that aren't, but I suspect you have to read some of the latter to be able to get to where you not only appreciate the former, but can tell the difference by the book blurb/and or contents of first couple of pages.
zetsurin 4y ago
Is this true? I couldn't find anything on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen.. Did fine this https://littlesis.org/person/41539-Tyler_Cowen https://littlesis.org/person/41539-Tyler_Cowen
- viburnum 4y ago
  Yeah, it's all out in the open. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center

paulpauper 4y ago

Why. Bailing out on bad books seems like a better way to read.