14 ms·

"But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how the world works." Boy oh boy, if I had a quarter every time I heard that probably I

by Jun8 13y ago

"But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how the world works." Boy oh boy, if I had a quarter every time I heard that probably I could get a tall Starbucks latte. Many, many people are under the assumption that fiction is stuff that somebody made up and hence useless while non-fiction gives you information about the world; so if you're a busy person, read non-fiction (it's of, course debatable if such a neat classification even can be done). What these people do not realize is that great fiction can provide more information about the world, humanity in general, and what's even more important, yourself, then you can ever glimpse by reading another Gladwell book.

baby 13y ago
Still, fiction is fiction. It's like all those questions : would you rather do this, or live all your life with this. They are fun, but they are useless as they never happened. There is no point thinking about them besides playing with your imagination. Fiction is the same to me, yes it came from a real context, but it's still a work of fiction and doesn't teach you anything about real life. e.g. Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories?
- a_bonobo 13y ago
  >Fiction is the same to me, yes it came from a real context, but it's still a work of fiction and doesn't teach you anything about real life. And what is fiction based on, if not real life? Fiction is the number one way to learn how to see the world from the point of view of a completely different person, only in fiction can you leave your own shoes. I'm pretty sure that reading fiction makes you a better person, and it's proven that reading fiction improves a person's empathy [1]. Increased empathy means that you can put yourself into other leaders' heads and guess what made them make their decisions, thereby learning how the world works. And yes, you can learn about dating from a romance novel, except that about 99% of them are not about real life. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/08/literary-fiction-improves-empathy-study http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/08/liter...
- JamesArgo 13y ago
  You may learn things about the expectations of those that read romantic novels, some of whom you may want to date. Fiction is instrumentally useful insomuch as it teaches you the cultural context others are immersed in. It's probably worth it for most peoples to learn how fiction works and why it is appealing, something that can't be done exclusively through non-fiction. Spending ~10% of one's reading time on fiction isn't an unreasonable use of a rational person's time, disregarding the pleasure of it entirely. At least, this is my rationalization.
- jmduke 13y ago
  As a simple counterpoint, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a fictional book that imparts upon the reader many things about 'real life': both historical/factual (what Russian gulags were like; what the climate of WWII-era Europe was like) and personal (the true value of things; how one survives in the face of suffocating adversity).
  - ealloc 13y ago
    On the scale from "totally fictional" to "totally non-fictional", Ivan Denisovich leans pretty far to the non-fiction side since much of it is directly based on the author's real experiences, so much so that it's often referred to as a "semi-autobiography". As one of "them" who often prefers non-fiction, I enjoyed the book for that reason. Incidentally, I think it's stronger in this fictionalized form than as it would have been as a straight-up autobiography.
- Osmium 13y ago
  > e.g. Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? Well, since romantic novels aren't really about dating, I'm not sure the question makes sense. A better question would be: "Will you learn more about love from reading fiction or by reading nonfiction?" And for that I think the answer is obvious.
  - baby 13y ago
    You mean it's obvious that love is nothing like what you read in books. Right? The only books that depicted relationship in a "real light" were non-fiction books. The only example that comes to my mind is Bukowski right now and it's not pretty.
- ericdykstra 13y ago
  > They are fun, but they are useless as they never happened. There is no point thinking about them besides playing with your imagination. Just because something happened doesn't mean it's useful to think about. Conversely, just because something never happened doesn't mean it isn't useful to think about. I've read fiction books that made me examine my perspective or way of life in a way that nothing else has, and I've read non-fiction books that didn't register a single change in me.
  - dwd 13y ago
    Very true, now is a very good time to reread 1984 or Brave New World and reflect on where our society is headed.
- look_lookatme 13y ago
  Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? What we all need are experiences (and any reading counts as an experience) that change us, that help us grow and mature our worldview and increase our self-awareness. Reading good fiction can help tremendously. You may not learn about dating by reading Ishiguro, but it's the case that the profound humanity of his writing makes you a more compassionate and confident person and that's the kind of stuff that can and will make you more desirable to be around.
- FreakLegion 13y ago
  Still, fiction is fiction. "You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, 'Is it true?' and if the answer matters, you've got your answer. For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies. Is it true? The answer matters. You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen -- and maybe it did, anything's possible -- even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, 'The fuck you do that for?' and the jumper says, 'Story of my life, man,' and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened."
  - ealloc 13y ago
    I read that book. It left me convinced that I couldn't learn anything at all from those fictional war stories since I couldn't distinguish the truths from the half-truths, and it was a turning point in my literary life as I realized I do indeed prefer to read non-fiction. (PS I still read and enjoy fiction. I don't get why everyone's so up in arms about Bill Gate's mild preference for non-fiction)
    - lmm 13y ago
      It seems like more than a "mild preference" if what he read was that skewed to non-fiction.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  > e.g. Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? Your point is moot. Even non-fiction is fiction in a way. The writer may have changed details, selected only specific facts, hidden some parts of the truth. You never know. At least with fiction you KNOW it's made up, but with non-fiction you can not really tell what is true or not because of your limited knowledge of how it was written and redacted.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  You need to read better fiction. Look around you, speculative science fiction is what inspired the world you live in; it created this reality. You have global communications via satellite because Author C Clark wrote a piece of fiction that sprung the idea upon the world. Fiction generates ideas, to think that somehow doesn't matter because it hasn't happened yet is massively missing the point.
  - andyjohnson0 13y ago
    Not disputing your general point, by Clark's original description of geostationary comsats was in a letter to Wireless World magazine, followed by a paper in the same publication [1]. It wasn't popularised via fiction, although later he did write some fiction that used the idea. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_Geostationary_communications_satellite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_Geostation...
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      Ah, correction noted, thanks.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? Well, if you are straight guy, you could learn a lot (everything) about what women want by carefully reading the romance novels they read. There's also this embedded assumption in your statement and in BG's that non-fiction tells some sort of factual truth about "real life." Negatory.
- Jun8 13y ago
  In one sense this is true, non-fiction works are much richer in factoids; conversely, however, fiction is richer in certain other facts: It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. This doesn't mean that non-fiction works cannot pertain to the reader/viewer that kind of knowledge, e.g. the iconic image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc burn by napalm in Vietnam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc) "speaks volumes" as they say. As for dating, here's some good advice (assuming you're a man): grab a copy or Pride and Prejudice and read it to get a grasp of the female psyche. And if you don't read it at least carry it around where she will see.
  - defen 13y ago
    So, I recently read Pride and Prejudice at the behest of my girlfriend (it's her favorite book) and I just could not get into it. I don't know if it was the Regency-era prose or what, but I could not get into a flow of reading it - some books I'll effortlessly ingest 100+ pages at a time, but nothing like that happened with P&P. It always felt like a struggle. I enjoyed some of the characters - Mrs. Bennet is ridiculous, and Mr. Collins is one of the funniest characters I've encountered in fiction, but overall I'd have a hard time recommending it to anyone. Now, I know that many critics and authors I admire consider P&P to be one of the finest English-language novels ever written, so I have to ask: what am I missing?
    - honestcoyote 13y ago
      One of the things I love about Austen, her wit and great storytelling aside, is her insights into the regency society of the time. With Austen, for a modern reader, there's a lot to appreciate. Her books give a perspective on what life was like as a member of a class (females) in a society which terribly oppressive for them. What would it be like to be a very intelligent, well-read person who is not allowed to hold a job at a professional or managerial level, not allowed to get a college education, not allowed (generally speaking) to travel freely or own property without restrictions. In many respects, this world is as alien to us as anything found in scifi or fantasy and is therefore a fascinating and horrifying view. Austen will give you this perspective. If you pay attention closely, you can also learn quite a bit about the ground level view of the English class system in the regency period and how it worked for people on varying social strata. Her novel, Emma, is particularly good at this. Even the focus on courtship and marriage, which many people will find completely frivolous, has an interesting message. I can't find the exact quote so this is from memory, Austen once remarked that her focus on marriage was because the marriage proposal was the one free choice (in terms of refusal) women were allowed to have. And considering the social and legal power the husband would have over the wife, the woman's choice becomes the thing which will determine the course of her life. From this point of view, there's no wonder why marriage is presented as such an overwhelmingly important event. I hope you'll give her books another chance.
- grey-area 13y ago
  Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? I contend that you'd learn an awful lot more about love and relationships from a novel like Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina, than you ever will from 'non-fiction' like The Game (which you've mentioned up-thread). Drawing a clear distinction between fiction and non-fiction is in my opinion pointless - you can tell any story you like by using selected facts, you can tell multiple stories with the same facts, and people often do twist the truth when reminiscing and celebrating the past, or present the truth from a very limited, insular point of view in so-called non-fiction books. So in this sense I see non-fiction as very similar to fiction; it's used to tell stories, to present the world as the author sees it, and to educate and entertain. All of these functions are performed by both fiction and non-fiction, and in both cases we're trusting the author to tell us something about the world from their perspective. The best stories (be they memories of a real-world event, or imagined events based on life experience) transcend the particular and become lessons about human behaviour and life.
jmduke 13y ago
My mantra: Non-fiction teaches you about the world. Fiction teaches you about yourself.
- gbog 13y ago
  Mine: Good books teach you about the world and about yourself.
  - onedev 13y ago
    What are some books you deem as good based on that criteria?
    - gbog 13y ago
      No, the "teach me about the world and myself" is not a criteria for being a good book, quite the opposite. It is not because a book teaches you something that it is good, it is because it is good that it teaches you something. But why or how is it good, then? Well, usually because the writer is a good writer (but not always, some books have no writers, or are good despite their bad writers). And a good writer is just someone who has a very itchy scar somewhere and would die if not using writing as a bloodletting.
      - onedev 13y ago
        Ok, I'd still like some examples if you have any. I think that'd help me better understand.
      - amagumori 13y ago
        that boils down to "good books are made of good writing, which is created by good writers, and good writers feel strongly about the things they write about"
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - baby 13y ago
oskarth 13y ago
This is a very common viewpoint among technical people, sadly. Kind of like how humanists think math is about counting things. I'm not implying Gates is of that variety, but, you know, his kind, our kind. Not that there's much point in reading Shakespeare nowadays, anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_cultures
- bqe 13y ago
  Why do you think there's no point in reading Shakespeare? I like many people, read Shakespeare in high school and disliked it. Reading it again as an adult is a completely different experience, and one I highly recommend. My favorite play is Titus Andronicus. How often do you have Anger, Rape, and Murder personified on stage, or forced cannibalism? The Quentin Tarantino of Shakespeare for sure.
  - spenuke 13y ago
    One of the greatest joys I find is when something of an outrageous reputation actually lives up to that reputation. The Beatles, SICP, a couple examples. Shakespeare is perhaps the greatest example. Some people have argued that nobody should read Shakespeare until after forty. I'm younger than that, but it's true that one of the greatest pleasures of reading great literature is recognition - RE-cognition - and you have to live some before you can recognize something in a piece of art.
- bennyg 13y ago
  Shakespeare's comedies are absolutely hilarious. You need to watch one at an authentic Shakespeare festival as well. His tragedies and histories are good too, but I'm a sucker for the humor, play on words, and overall wit in his writing.
- Renaud 13y ago
  Well, we can satisfy both our needs for geekiness and culture by watching Sir Patrick Stewart play Shakespeare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZnaXDRwu84 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZnaXDRwu84
Osmium 13y ago
Couldn't agree more. To quote a favourite author, "After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world." I believe this to be true.
sho_hn 13y ago
Reading fiction tends to be the best way to train the habit of seeing the world through someone else's eyes, and a little empathy goes a long way in many life situations indeed.
- ashearer 13y ago
  There's an associated danger with fiction: though it reflects how the author sees the world, it may not match how the world really is. Fiction can intentionally or unintentionally invite readers to draw universal lessons which are misleading. I'd even suggest that some authors, particularly those with strong political views, may be motivated to write fiction in order to give support to their own ideas. It's a blank canvas onto which to project an idealized world, and to fulfill wishes. (If that's the case, it can serve as a mildly negative Bayesian signal about whether the ideas are really true. If there were so many real-world examples illustrating the beliefs, why would the author be moved to write fiction to promote them?) Apart from politics, plots are more interesting when they're surprising, but almost by definition, surprising plots are less likely to be generalizable to the world. (Of course, non-fiction can really be fiction in disguise, but at least non-fiction can be fact-checked. To cite a recent Hollywood example, wherever the movie Argo is suspenseful, it's simply made up. Minor spoiler: If you drew a lesson about how going directly against the instructions of both the President and your CIA boss can be a useful tool to cause your boss to suddenly rally around you and later commend your success, you would be gravely misled. Interesting plots thrive on such unrealistic conflict.)
  - selimthegrim 13y ago
    Bingo. This guy gets it. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_the_Khazars http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_the_Khazars http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2658437-knife http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2658437-knife http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1324835.ece http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1324835.ece http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/19/danilo-kis-the-stylish-historian-of-infamy.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/19/danilo-kis-...
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
dudurocha 13y ago
Tell me two books that'll teach me so much. Please.
- jmduke 13y ago
  I'd recommend Steinbeck's East of Eden and Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
  - dudurocha 13y ago
    thanks! I've been delaying the read of Brothers Karamazov. I'll look for the Steinbeck's.
    - jackbravo 13y ago
      I second the Karamazov suggestion, and would say also War & Peace by the other great Russian, Tolstoi. One of the bests books I've read.
- xkarga00 13y ago
  Byron Crawford's The Mindset of a Champion
- cm2012 13y ago
  You may have read "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck (if you havn't, I highly recommend it.) You might not have heard of some of her other novels. One such book, "Pavilion of Women", is almost life changing. It is subtle. It has an unmatched understanding and portrayal of human nature. Everyone I know who's read it has been affected by it. I can't recommend "Pavilion of Women" enough - it was a magical experience to read it.
donniezazen 13y ago
He probably means he wants facts and not paradigms.
waterlesscloud 13y ago
Ah yes, "these people". All that fiction and still buying into "us and them".
auctiontheory 13y ago
I was shocked by that quote from someone in such a position of power and influence. As kids we are taught that "non-fiction" is "true" and that "fiction" is "made-up stories" but I would hope that most of us, as we get through life, eventually figure out that nether of those statements is accurate. Camus said it best: 'Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.'
tokenadult 13y ago
Well, if you compare the whole genre of "great fiction" to "another Gladwell book," that gives the initial advantage to "great fiction," for sure. I read some of fiction and some of nonfiction, but definitely skew to reading more nonfiction. One nonfiction book, which I think someone on HN told me isn't even the best book on its specific topic, was very meaningful to me and helped me learn a lot about myself. I read the entire book out loud to my dad when he was paralyzed, about three years after his paralyzing accident (which was about three years before he died). The book is The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition,[1] entirely nonfiction, but nonetheless a way to be transported into an earlier time and a place that I am unlikely ever to see in my lifetime. The characters were all real, but they all got me thinking about how I think and about how I get along in life. Great nonfiction can can provide more information about the world, humanity in general, and what's even more important, yourself, then you can ever glimpse by reading another science-fiction novel. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarctic-Expedition-ebook/dp/B001O1O6PE/ http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarc...
- Shamanmuni 13y ago
  What are you arguing against? He didn't say that fiction is always better than non-fiction for learning about the world. However, many people (Bill Gates included apparently) operate under the opposite assumption that non-fiction gives you more information about the world by default. And that's simply not true. Fiction can change your views, give you new ideas and insights, challenge your beliefs, etc. Fiction writers create based on their life experiences, their feelings and ideas and also the information they got from different sources. It's pure ignorance to assume they only offer brainless entertainment.
  - onebaddude 13y ago
    >What are you arguing against? He didn't say that fiction is always better than non-fiction for learning about the world. And what is the OP arguing about? Mr. Gates didn't say that non-fiction is always better for learning about the world. >Non-fiction gives you more information about the world by default Sorry, but it does. Easily testable hypothesis; go to the NY Times Bestsellers lists and compare, book-for-book, what can be "learned" from each (as most of us understand "learning"). In fact, it's hard to believe anyone is actually arguing this point. Then again, with this community's penchant for nitpicking and distaste for Microsoft, I shouldn't be surprised. As someone who reads 40-50 books a year, I'm always grateful for these lists.
Negitivefrags 13y ago
Why does reading have to be about learning? Can we not just read to have fun. I don't know how we got to the point where so many see entertainment for it's own sake as a negative thing.
- mujunto 13y ago
  It seems to me that entertainment without learning isn't possible. Indeed, the pleasure that entertainment affords is a straightforward signal that the brain is learning, without exception. Take humour. What was funny in the past is usually not funny now, because humour depends on our current state of knowledge and is a means of opening our minds to new ideas. Even the pleasure that comes from addiction and drug use indicates that learning is taking place -- learning the context of the 'high' (more and more subtle detail concerning the smell of the coffee, the crackle of the cigarette paper, the label of the wine being poured, the faces of one's fellow drinkers, etc, and linking this information to the pleasure itself). Contrariwise, if one is not entertained, if one cannot find some pleasurable feature in the situation, then one is learning nothing. So learning without entertainment is not possible either!
dhaivatpandya 13y ago
This works on a philosophical level of "knowing more about the world", but with regard to just information, fiction doesn't cut it (nor is it meant to). For example, you don't learn more about shipping containers or processor architecture with fiction.
gsz 13y ago
I prefer anthropology, sociology, history and psychology to fiction when it comes to learning more about humanity.
ovatsug25 13y ago
Agreed. Fiction lets me say some things that would be ignored otherwise. There is something insidious about it. My stories would be off-putting in a frank manner. But through fiction, you can rest your case and expose a world that would otherwise be ignored. For example, The Kite Runner is probably the only way to learn about Afghanistan for many people.
kevinkyyro 13y ago
In defense of non-fiction readers, it seems that one could make the statement quoted above in order to say "this is my intent in reading, so it leads me to read these types of books because they aim to serve that purpose"; it does not necessarily deny fiction the ability to teach one about the world and more than a good non-fictional work. However, choosing to read fiction puts no lower bound on the amount of real information you will get nor the amount you will learn about the world, yourself, or humanity. Meanwhile, a non-fictional piece will at least have a reasonable guarantee to contain information of some kind.
why-el 13y ago
This reminded me of a video where chomsky was asked what he would do if he had time and he said: "I will probably read a novel from the 18th century."

by Jun8 13y ago

baby 13y ago

Still, fiction is fiction. It's like all those questions : would you rather do this, or live all your life with this. They are fun, but they are useless as they never happened. There is no point thinking about them besides playing with your imagination. Fiction is the same to me, yes it came from a real context, but it's still a work of fiction and doesn't teach you anything about real life. e.g. Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories?

a_bonobo 13y ago
>Fiction is the same to me, yes it came from a real context, but it's still a work of fiction and doesn't teach you anything about real life. And what is fiction based on, if not real life? Fiction is the number one way to learn how to see the world from the point of view of a completely different person, only in fiction can you leave your own shoes. I'm pretty sure that reading fiction makes you a better person, and it's proven that reading fiction improves a person's empathy [1]. Increased empathy means that you can put yourself into other leaders' heads and guess what made them make their decisions, thereby learning how the world works. And yes, you can learn about dating from a romance novel, except that about 99% of them are not about real life. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/08/literary-fiction-improves-empathy-study http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/08/liter...
JamesArgo 13y ago
You may learn things about the expectations of those that read romantic novels, some of whom you may want to date. Fiction is instrumentally useful insomuch as it teaches you the cultural context others are immersed in. It's probably worth it for most peoples to learn how fiction works and why it is appealing, something that can't be done exclusively through non-fiction. Spending ~10% of one's reading time on fiction isn't an unreasonable use of a rational person's time, disregarding the pleasure of it entirely. At least, this is my rationalization.
jmduke 13y ago
As a simple counterpoint, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a fictional book that imparts upon the reader many things about 'real life': both historical/factual (what Russian gulags were like; what the climate of WWII-era Europe was like) and personal (the true value of things; how one survives in the face of suffocating adversity).
- ealloc 13y ago
  On the scale from "totally fictional" to "totally non-fictional", Ivan Denisovich leans pretty far to the non-fiction side since much of it is directly based on the author's real experiences, so much so that it's often referred to as a "semi-autobiography". As one of "them" who often prefers non-fiction, I enjoyed the book for that reason. Incidentally, I think it's stronger in this fictionalized form than as it would have been as a straight-up autobiography.
Osmium 13y ago
> e.g. Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? Well, since romantic novels aren't really about dating, I'm not sure the question makes sense. A better question would be: "Will you learn more about love from reading fiction or by reading nonfiction?" And for that I think the answer is obvious.
- baby 13y ago
  You mean it's obvious that love is nothing like what you read in books. Right? The only books that depicted relationship in a "real light" were non-fiction books. The only example that comes to my mind is Bukowski right now and it's not pretty.
ericdykstra 13y ago
> They are fun, but they are useless as they never happened. There is no point thinking about them besides playing with your imagination. Just because something happened doesn't mean it's useful to think about. Conversely, just because something never happened doesn't mean it isn't useful to think about. I've read fiction books that made me examine my perspective or way of life in a way that nothing else has, and I've read non-fiction books that didn't register a single change in me.
- dwd 13y ago
  Very true, now is a very good time to reread 1984 or Brave New World and reflect on where our society is headed.
look_lookatme 13y ago
Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? What we all need are experiences (and any reading counts as an experience) that change us, that help us grow and mature our worldview and increase our self-awareness. Reading good fiction can help tremendously. You may not learn about dating by reading Ishiguro, but it's the case that the profound humanity of his writing makes you a more compassionate and confident person and that's the kind of stuff that can and will make you more desirable to be around.
FreakLegion 13y ago
Still, fiction is fiction. "You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, 'Is it true?' and if the answer matters, you've got your answer. For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies. Is it true? The answer matters. You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen -- and maybe it did, anything's possible -- even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, 'The fuck you do that for?' and the jumper says, 'Story of my life, man,' and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened."
- ealloc 13y ago
  I read that book. It left me convinced that I couldn't learn anything at all from those fictional war stories since I couldn't distinguish the truths from the half-truths, and it was a turning point in my literary life as I realized I do indeed prefer to read non-fiction. (PS I still read and enjoy fiction. I don't get why everyone's so up in arms about Bill Gate's mild preference for non-fiction)
  - lmm 13y ago
    It seems like more than a "mild preference" if what he read was that skewed to non-fiction.
ekianjo 13y ago
> e.g. Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? Your point is moot. Even non-fiction is fiction in a way. The writer may have changed details, selected only specific facts, hidden some parts of the truth. You never know. At least with fiction you KNOW it's made up, but with non-fiction you can not really tell what is true or not because of your limited knowledge of how it was written and redacted.
gnaritas 13y ago
You need to read better fiction. Look around you, speculative science fiction is what inspired the world you live in; it created this reality. You have global communications via satellite because Author C Clark wrote a piece of fiction that sprung the idea upon the world. Fiction generates ideas, to think that somehow doesn't matter because it hasn't happened yet is massively missing the point.
- andyjohnson0 13y ago
  Not disputing your general point, by Clark's original description of geostationary comsats was in a letter to Wireless World magazine, followed by a paper in the same publication [1]. It wasn't popularised via fiction, although later he did write some fiction that used the idea. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_Geostationary_communications_satellite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_Geostation...
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Ah, correction noted, thanks.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? Well, if you are straight guy, you could learn a lot (everything) about what women want by carefully reading the romance novels they read. There's also this embedded assumption in your statement and in BG's that non-fiction tells some sort of factual truth about "real life." Negatory.
Jun8 13y ago
In one sense this is true, non-fiction works are much richer in factoids; conversely, however, fiction is richer in certain other facts: It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. This doesn't mean that non-fiction works cannot pertain to the reader/viewer that kind of knowledge, e.g. the iconic image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc burn by napalm in Vietnam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc) "speaks volumes" as they say. As for dating, here's some good advice (assuming you're a man): grab a copy or Pride and Prejudice and read it to get a grasp of the female psyche. And if you don't read it at least carry it around where she will see.
- defen 13y ago
  So, I recently read Pride and Prejudice at the behest of my girlfriend (it's her favorite book) and I just could not get into it. I don't know if it was the Regency-era prose or what, but I could not get into a flow of reading it - some books I'll effortlessly ingest 100+ pages at a time, but nothing like that happened with P&P. It always felt like a struggle. I enjoyed some of the characters - Mrs. Bennet is ridiculous, and Mr. Collins is one of the funniest characters I've encountered in fiction, but overall I'd have a hard time recommending it to anyone. Now, I know that many critics and authors I admire consider P&P to be one of the finest English-language novels ever written, so I have to ask: what am I missing?
  - honestcoyote 13y ago
    One of the things I love about Austen, her wit and great storytelling aside, is her insights into the regency society of the time. With Austen, for a modern reader, there's a lot to appreciate. Her books give a perspective on what life was like as a member of a class (females) in a society which terribly oppressive for them. What would it be like to be a very intelligent, well-read person who is not allowed to hold a job at a professional or managerial level, not allowed to get a college education, not allowed (generally speaking) to travel freely or own property without restrictions. In many respects, this world is as alien to us as anything found in scifi or fantasy and is therefore a fascinating and horrifying view. Austen will give you this perspective. If you pay attention closely, you can also learn quite a bit about the ground level view of the English class system in the regency period and how it worked for people on varying social strata. Her novel, Emma, is particularly good at this. Even the focus on courtship and marriage, which many people will find completely frivolous, has an interesting message. I can't find the exact quote so this is from memory, Austen once remarked that her focus on marriage was because the marriage proposal was the one free choice (in terms of refusal) women were allowed to have. And considering the social and legal power the husband would have over the wife, the woman's choice becomes the thing which will determine the course of her life. From this point of view, there's no wonder why marriage is presented as such an overwhelmingly important event. I hope you'll give her books another chance.
grey-area 13y ago
Are you gonna learn about dating by reading romantic novels or real life stories? I contend that you'd learn an awful lot more about love and relationships from a novel like Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina, than you ever will from 'non-fiction' like The Game (which you've mentioned up-thread). Drawing a clear distinction between fiction and non-fiction is in my opinion pointless - you can tell any story you like by using selected facts, you can tell multiple stories with the same facts, and people often do twist the truth when reminiscing and celebrating the past, or present the truth from a very limited, insular point of view in so-called non-fiction books. So in this sense I see non-fiction as very similar to fiction; it's used to tell stories, to present the world as the author sees it, and to educate and entertain. All of these functions are performed by both fiction and non-fiction, and in both cases we're trusting the author to tell us something about the world from their perspective. The best stories (be they memories of a real-world event, or imagined events based on life experience) transcend the particular and become lessons about human behaviour and life.

jmduke 13y ago

My mantra: Non-fiction teaches you about the world. Fiction teaches you about yourself.

gbog 13y ago
Mine: Good books teach you about the world and about yourself.
- onedev 13y ago
  What are some books you deem as good based on that criteria?
  - gbog 13y ago
    No, the "teach me about the world and myself" is not a criteria for being a good book, quite the opposite. It is not because a book teaches you something that it is good, it is because it is good that it teaches you something. But why or how is it good, then? Well, usually because the writer is a good writer (but not always, some books have no writers, or are good despite their bad writers). And a good writer is just someone who has a very itchy scar somewhere and would die if not using writing as a bloodletting.
    - onedev 13y ago
      Ok, I'd still like some examples if you have any. I think that'd help me better understand.
    - amagumori 13y ago
      that boils down to "good books are made of good writing, which is created by good writers, and good writers feel strongly about the things they write about"
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - baby 13y ago

oskarth 13y ago

This is a very common viewpoint among technical people, sadly. Kind of like how humanists think math is about counting things. I'm not implying Gates is of that variety, but, you know, his kind, our kind. Not that there's much point in reading Shakespeare nowadays, anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_cultures

bqe 13y ago
Why do you think there's no point in reading Shakespeare? I like many people, read Shakespeare in high school and disliked it. Reading it again as an adult is a completely different experience, and one I highly recommend. My favorite play is Titus Andronicus. How often do you have Anger, Rape, and Murder personified on stage, or forced cannibalism? The Quentin Tarantino of Shakespeare for sure.
- spenuke 13y ago
  One of the greatest joys I find is when something of an outrageous reputation actually lives up to that reputation. The Beatles, SICP, a couple examples. Shakespeare is perhaps the greatest example. Some people have argued that nobody should read Shakespeare until after forty. I'm younger than that, but it's true that one of the greatest pleasures of reading great literature is recognition - RE-cognition - and you have to live some before you can recognize something in a piece of art.
bennyg 13y ago
Shakespeare's comedies are absolutely hilarious. You need to watch one at an authentic Shakespeare festival as well. His tragedies and histories are good too, but I'm a sucker for the humor, play on words, and overall wit in his writing.
Renaud 13y ago
Well, we can satisfy both our needs for geekiness and culture by watching Sir Patrick Stewart play Shakespeare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZnaXDRwu84 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZnaXDRwu84

Osmium 13y ago

Couldn't agree more. To quote a favourite author, "After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world." I believe this to be true.

sho_hn 13y ago

Reading fiction tends to be the best way to train the habit of seeing the world through someone else's eyes, and a little empathy goes a long way in many life situations indeed.

ashearer 13y ago
There's an associated danger with fiction: though it reflects how the author sees the world, it may not match how the world really is. Fiction can intentionally or unintentionally invite readers to draw universal lessons which are misleading. I'd even suggest that some authors, particularly those with strong political views, may be motivated to write fiction in order to give support to their own ideas. It's a blank canvas onto which to project an idealized world, and to fulfill wishes. (If that's the case, it can serve as a mildly negative Bayesian signal about whether the ideas are really true. If there were so many real-world examples illustrating the beliefs, why would the author be moved to write fiction to promote them?) Apart from politics, plots are more interesting when they're surprising, but almost by definition, surprising plots are less likely to be generalizable to the world. (Of course, non-fiction can really be fiction in disguise, but at least non-fiction can be fact-checked. To cite a recent Hollywood example, wherever the movie Argo is suspenseful, it's simply made up. Minor spoiler: If you drew a lesson about how going directly against the instructions of both the President and your CIA boss can be a useful tool to cause your boss to suddenly rally around you and later commend your success, you would be gravely misled. Interesting plots thrive on such unrealistic conflict.)
- selimthegrim 13y ago
  Bingo. This guy gets it. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_the_Khazars http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_the_Khazars http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2658437-knife http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2658437-knife http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1324835.ece http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1324835.ece http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/19/danilo-kis-the-stylish-historian-of-infamy.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/19/danilo-kis-...
- snowwrestler 13y ago

dudurocha 13y ago

Tell me two books that'll teach me so much. Please.

jmduke 13y ago
I'd recommend Steinbeck's East of Eden and Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
- dudurocha 13y ago
  thanks! I've been delaying the read of Brothers Karamazov. I'll look for the Steinbeck's.
  - jackbravo 13y ago
    I second the Karamazov suggestion, and would say also War & Peace by the other great Russian, Tolstoi. One of the bests books I've read.
xkarga00 13y ago
Byron Crawford's The Mindset of a Champion
cm2012 13y ago
You may have read "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck (if you havn't, I highly recommend it.) You might not have heard of some of her other novels. One such book, "Pavilion of Women", is almost life changing. It is subtle. It has an unmatched understanding and portrayal of human nature. Everyone I know who's read it has been affected by it. I can't recommend "Pavilion of Women" enough - it was a magical experience to read it.

donniezazen 13y ago

He probably means he wants facts and not paradigms.

waterlesscloud 13y ago

Ah yes, "these people". All that fiction and still buying into "us and them".

auctiontheory 13y ago

I was shocked by that quote from someone in such a position of power and influence. As kids we are taught that "non-fiction" is "true" and that "fiction" is "made-up stories" but I would hope that most of us, as we get through life, eventually figure out that nether of those statements is accurate. Camus said it best: 'Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.'

tokenadult 13y ago

Well, if you compare the whole genre of "great fiction" to "another Gladwell book," that gives the initial advantage to "great fiction," for sure. I read some of fiction and some of nonfiction, but definitely skew to reading more nonfiction. One nonfiction book, which I think someone on HN told me isn't even the best book on its specific topic, was very meaningful to me and helped me learn a lot about myself. I read the entire book out loud to my dad when he was paralyzed, about three years after his paralyzing accident (which was about three years before he died). The book is The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition,[1] entirely nonfiction, but nonetheless a way to be transported into an earlier time and a place that I am unlikely ever to see in my lifetime. The characters were all real, but they all got me thinking about how I think and about how I get along in life. Great nonfiction can can provide more information about the world, humanity in general, and what's even more important, yourself, then you can ever glimpse by reading another science-fiction novel. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarctic-Expedition-ebook/dp/B001O1O6PE/ http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarc...

Shamanmuni 13y ago
What are you arguing against? He didn't say that fiction is always better than non-fiction for learning about the world. However, many people (Bill Gates included apparently) operate under the opposite assumption that non-fiction gives you more information about the world by default. And that's simply not true. Fiction can change your views, give you new ideas and insights, challenge your beliefs, etc. Fiction writers create based on their life experiences, their feelings and ideas and also the information they got from different sources. It's pure ignorance to assume they only offer brainless entertainment.
- onebaddude 13y ago
  >What are you arguing against? He didn't say that fiction is always better than non-fiction for learning about the world. And what is the OP arguing about? Mr. Gates didn't say that non-fiction is always better for learning about the world. >Non-fiction gives you more information about the world by default Sorry, but it does. Easily testable hypothesis; go to the NY Times Bestsellers lists and compare, book-for-book, what can be "learned" from each (as most of us understand "learning"). In fact, it's hard to believe anyone is actually arguing this point. Then again, with this community's penchant for nitpicking and distaste for Microsoft, I shouldn't be surprised. As someone who reads 40-50 books a year, I'm always grateful for these lists.

Negitivefrags 13y ago

Why does reading have to be about learning? Can we not just read to have fun. I don't know how we got to the point where so many see entertainment for it's own sake as a negative thing.

mujunto 13y ago
It seems to me that entertainment without learning isn't possible. Indeed, the pleasure that entertainment affords is a straightforward signal that the brain is learning, without exception. Take humour. What was funny in the past is usually not funny now, because humour depends on our current state of knowledge and is a means of opening our minds to new ideas. Even the pleasure that comes from addiction and drug use indicates that learning is taking place -- learning the context of the 'high' (more and more subtle detail concerning the smell of the coffee, the crackle of the cigarette paper, the label of the wine being poured, the faces of one's fellow drinkers, etc, and linking this information to the pleasure itself). Contrariwise, if one is not entertained, if one cannot find some pleasurable feature in the situation, then one is learning nothing. So learning without entertainment is not possible either!

dhaivatpandya 13y ago

This works on a philosophical level of "knowing more about the world", but with regard to just information, fiction doesn't cut it (nor is it meant to). For example, you don't learn more about shipping containers or processor architecture with fiction.

gsz 13y ago

I prefer anthropology, sociology, history and psychology to fiction when it comes to learning more about humanity.

ovatsug25 13y ago

Agreed. Fiction lets me say some things that would be ignored otherwise. There is something insidious about it. My stories would be off-putting in a frank manner. But through fiction, you can rest your case and expose a world that would otherwise be ignored. For example, The Kite Runner is probably the only way to learn about Afghanistan for many people.

kevinkyyro 13y ago

In defense of non-fiction readers, it seems that one could make the statement quoted above in order to say "this is my intent in reading, so it leads me to read these types of books because they aim to serve that purpose"; it does not necessarily deny fiction the ability to teach one about the world and more than a good non-fictional work. However, choosing to read fiction puts no lower bound on the amount of real information you will get nor the amount you will learn about the world, yourself, or humanity. Meanwhile, a non-fictional piece will at least have a reasonable guarantee to contain information of some kind.

why-el 13y ago

This reminded me of a video where chomsky was asked what he would do if he had time and he said: "I will probably read a novel from the 18th century."