5 ms·

You overfit for classics and skip on maybe very entertaining contemporary reads. Feels weird to me to hipster out on the "I build a library of classics only". W

You overfit for classics and skip on maybe very entertaining contemporary reads. Feels weird to me to hipster out on the "I build a library of classics only". With this approach you'd never read Dark Matter, which is one of my favorites in the past few years. I also don't care about rankings, top sellers etc. etc., but contemporary stuff is still worth the read. Feels very weird to me tbh.

marttt 3y ago
Not considering myself a hipster. I'm closely following new releases on several fields (including experimental fiction and contemporary philosophy), but I like to wait -- typically some years -- before I really read them.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Fair enough
Yodel0914 3y ago
You're not wrong, which is why for me longevity is only one of the factors that goes into my book select - but it is a big one. The thing is, we have so much brilliant art and literature available that you need to filter it somehow. The likelihood that something released this year is better than something that has been heralded and great for 100 years is very, very low. Not impossible, mind you. I've definitely read modern books that have had a huge impact on me (including, ironically, Taleb, who introduced me to the Lindy effect), and art and music have a certain cultural context that can make modern expressions more relevant.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  I agree! There are so many classics that are just a pain in the ass to read (looking at you Faust) and just plain suck. But I do love to read some of them sometimes. I just sell my books quite frequently and keep only the ones that resonated with me. I'll also buy books after having read them as an ebook
gizmo 3y ago
Also, we are too kind to some classics out of nostalgia perhaps. I've been greatly disappointed by top rated classic spy and sci-fi novels. The kind of storytelling people got away with 50 years ago really doesn't work anymore today. Think of bad pacing, characters without depth, lazy stereotyping, deus ex machinas. So on the one hand recency bias results in us giving undue attention to new books. On the other hand we are too forgiving to classics. There is no lesson here. Finding the right books to read is hard and you can't trust reviews.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Absolutely! Book discovery IS hard and it's sad that goodreads is still the best way for me. Recommendations suck on all platforms and visiting book shops has a recency bias and I'm going out with a whole in my pocket
- marttt 3y ago
  "The kind of storytelling people got away with 50 years ago really doesn't work anymore today." Yeah, I've struggled with this a lot -- e.g. still having trouble reading the works of Dostoevsky because of those endless walking-in-the-park-and-philosophising dialogues. These seem alien in my time and culture. I suppose you have to sense the characteristics of that 50-year-old language -- and see the universal, timeless ideas behind that language. Language is a tool, a form. It does change quite a bit in 50 (or 100) years, whereas the general ideas change much less IMO. To a large degree, this is a "seeing forest for the trees" thing.
  - RamblingCTO 3y ago
    Ohhh how I can relate. I'm reading Walden as a non-native speaker and 170 years ago things were quite different. Kindle has the nice functionality that tries to explain terms. What it does in practice tho is that it explains things I know and doesn't explain wildly exotic terms ...
- DontchaKnowit 3y ago
  Yeah I tried reading Solaris and was laughing at how bad it was. Felt the same way about nueromancer. Had a good run of trying out sci fi classics and being dissapointed. Philip k dicks stuff was solid tho. Ubiq is the shit
jackothy 3y ago
The fact that you mention Dark Matter (no hate, taste is subjective etc.) as potentially rivaling actual classics is for me just further proof that fighting recency bias and hype is important. But yes, of course some modern books will end up standing the test of time as well. But it's hard to judge that a priori without actually reading the book yourself. You will spend a finite amount of time reading in your life. If you read Dark Matter now, that could for example mean that you will never end up reading Dune, or The Count of Monte-Cristo. If you're gonna sit down and read, an older book is a much safer bet if you want to maximize the value of your limited time. Still, modern books can sometimes offer other qualities that simply don't exist in older books. Sci-Fi is a great example of that, where scienctific developments affect the writing deeply. So (unfortunately) in certain cases you might have to gamble on a newer book. But I try to avoid that.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  It's not about dark matter rivaling "classics" (which we established are shit enough most of the times anyway). And if you're US American, your classics are most probably not my classics. > an older book is a much safer bet if you want to maximize the value of your limited time I 100% disagree with that. Value is highly subjective. I've read a lot of the books that are considered as "the most important books from the western hemisphere" and let me tell you, most of it is garbage. It's just a classic because back in the day it was novel and exciting, nothing else like it. You can have a good time with both, modern and old books. It's about your selection process, not the age of the book. Reading has multiple purposes. Entertainment and education, most importantly. So I read books depending on the goal I want to achieve. PS: if you read the commercial garbage from reading lists and what's new, you'll have a bad time, granted. As everybody can write a book nowadays, quality is harder to find tho.

marttt 3y ago

Not considering myself a hipster. I'm closely following new releases on several fields (including experimental fiction and contemporary philosophy), but I like to wait -- typically some years -- before I really read them.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
Fair enough

Yodel0914 3y ago

You're not wrong, which is why for me longevity is only one of the factors that goes into my book select - but it is a big one. The thing is, we have so much brilliant art and literature available that you need to filter it somehow. The likelihood that something released this year is better than something that has been heralded and great for 100 years is very, very low. Not impossible, mind you. I've definitely read modern books that have had a huge impact on me (including, ironically, Taleb, who introduced me to the Lindy effect), and art and music have a certain cultural context that can make modern expressions more relevant.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
I agree! There are so many classics that are just a pain in the ass to read (looking at you Faust) and just plain suck. But I do love to read some of them sometimes. I just sell my books quite frequently and keep only the ones that resonated with me. I'll also buy books after having read them as an ebook

gizmo 3y ago

Also, we are too kind to some classics out of nostalgia perhaps. I've been greatly disappointed by top rated classic spy and sci-fi novels. The kind of storytelling people got away with 50 years ago really doesn't work anymore today. Think of bad pacing, characters without depth, lazy stereotyping, deus ex machinas. So on the one hand recency bias results in us giving undue attention to new books. On the other hand we are too forgiving to classics. There is no lesson here. Finding the right books to read is hard and you can't trust reviews.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
Absolutely! Book discovery IS hard and it's sad that goodreads is still the best way for me. Recommendations suck on all platforms and visiting book shops has a recency bias and I'm going out with a whole in my pocket
marttt 3y ago
"The kind of storytelling people got away with 50 years ago really doesn't work anymore today." Yeah, I've struggled with this a lot -- e.g. still having trouble reading the works of Dostoevsky because of those endless walking-in-the-park-and-philosophising dialogues. These seem alien in my time and culture. I suppose you have to sense the characteristics of that 50-year-old language -- and see the universal, timeless ideas behind that language. Language is a tool, a form. It does change quite a bit in 50 (or 100) years, whereas the general ideas change much less IMO. To a large degree, this is a "seeing forest for the trees" thing.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Ohhh how I can relate. I'm reading Walden as a non-native speaker and 170 years ago things were quite different. Kindle has the nice functionality that tries to explain terms. What it does in practice tho is that it explains things I know and doesn't explain wildly exotic terms ...
DontchaKnowit 3y ago
Yeah I tried reading Solaris and was laughing at how bad it was. Felt the same way about nueromancer. Had a good run of trying out sci fi classics and being dissapointed. Philip k dicks stuff was solid tho. Ubiq is the shit

jackothy 3y ago

The fact that you mention Dark Matter (no hate, taste is subjective etc.) as potentially rivaling actual classics is for me just further proof that fighting recency bias and hype is important. But yes, of course some modern books will end up standing the test of time as well. But it's hard to judge that a priori without actually reading the book yourself. You will spend a finite amount of time reading in your life. If you read Dark Matter now, that could for example mean that you will never end up reading Dune, or The Count of Monte-Cristo. If you're gonna sit down and read, an older book is a much safer bet if you want to maximize the value of your limited time. Still, modern books can sometimes offer other qualities that simply don't exist in older books. Sci-Fi is a great example of that, where scienctific developments affect the writing deeply. So (unfortunately) in certain cases you might have to gamble on a newer book. But I try to avoid that.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
It's not about dark matter rivaling "classics" (which we established are shit enough most of the times anyway). And if you're US American, your classics are most probably not my classics. > an older book is a much safer bet if you want to maximize the value of your limited time I 100% disagree with that. Value is highly subjective. I've read a lot of the books that are considered as "the most important books from the western hemisphere" and let me tell you, most of it is garbage. It's just a classic because back in the day it was novel and exciting, nothing else like it. You can have a good time with both, modern and old books. It's about your selection process, not the age of the book. Reading has multiple purposes. Entertainment and education, most importantly. So I read books depending on the goal I want to achieve. PS: if you read the commercial garbage from reading lists and what's new, you'll have a bad time, granted. As everybody can write a book nowadays, quality is harder to find tho.