The internet, including forums like HN, encourage tiny little "soundbites" of reading. How many internet stories do you read that are more than five minutes of

The internet, including forums like HN, encourage tiny little "soundbites" of reading. How many internet stories do you read that are more than five minutes of reading? If you're like me, very few. But "deep" reading, thinking about one subject or story for a long time--hours or even days--is very rare on the internet. This has been talked about before on HN, and the effects are much debated. Here's one take on it. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127370598 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1273705... In any case, I would encourage you to take this chance exercise your deep-reading muscles. Read a long book. Read a hard book. Read a book outside of the genres you normally read. The goal is to read something very different than the internet, and something different than you're used to. I'd suggest looking at a list of "great books" and picking out some that seem appealing to you, and picking out a few more that you have heard of but don't seem like your cup of tea. You'll grow in different ways with each type. Here's a list with a lot of variety: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6.Best_Books_of_the_20th_Century https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6.Best_Books_of_the_20th... (I don't know where you're going to be, but if it's Uganda, you might want to pick up "The Last King of Scotland", which I enjoyed reading during my stay in Kampala.)