I happen to read a lot (129 books last year, 121 so far this year) and widely, but I’m wondering if I could be directing my reading better. I tend to read in certain threads for a while (I read a lot about the atomic bomb and Cold War this year, for example) but also tend to get interested in popular or award winning books, whether contemporary or not. I also read a lot of fiction, where my choices tend to be even more random than my non-fiction choices. Or I get interested in one author and read everything they’ve written.
My method isn’t necessarily bad but I’m thinking it might be time to optimize my reading a bit.
So HN: How do you decide what to read?
I should probably turn off WiFi.
I browse indie bookshops, talk to colleagues and friends, read reviews and I’m on GoodReads. People know I like books so they buy or loan me books sometimes. I keep a list of loads of books that sound good, then chip away at it. The list is always growing so things fall off it, unread, eventually. It’s more of a stack, but with occasional queue behaviours.
I will typically always have about 10 unread books in a pile that I haven’t yet started. Which one I pick up next depends on mood. If I’ve just read an amazing novel I’ll probably choose non-fiction next as another novel immediately will often never feel as enjoyable.
I've always been a reader though; my mother would buy me a video game on my birthday or Christmas, but anytime I asked for a book she'd buy it for me.
Your reading speed will increase over time. When I read, I don't read word-by-word, line-by-line; I kind of dart back and forth through the page scanning for what I deem important and excluding things like detailed descriptions etc.. Usually the first line of a paragraph will tell you if it's worth reading carefully. If it's something like
> "Character A walked into the detritus of the ancient castle left by the shelling. They were struck by the total destruction of the place, a place that had stood stoically for centuries against endless tides of invaders, all undone..." etc.
I read "ok, character A walked into a destroyed castle" and move on.
I imagine I'm not getting the "full experience" by doing this, but even when reading big series like Malazan or the Wheel of Time I don't find I'm suddenly encountering things for the first time: the salient details seem to stick in my head.
Your process seems almost identical to mine. Maybe I should just be OK with doing it based on mood and what I have around or on my list. It works, but could it work better?
I recommend it. I schedule my router to shut down the wifi during the hours I should be sleeping. It's not so much a distraction thing as it is just a health precaution.
Used to do the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge for multiple years, until I felt I was just padding my stats with books that weren't useful
Then I saw a Naval tweet that was: "I would rather read the best 100 books over and over again until I absorb them rather than read all the books.”
And I adopted that strategy, which has been more useful for me
I'd like to think there's a period in your youth when you devour everything - even, god forbid, modern books on management. From here you move on to the classics - Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald. If a book bores you, drop it. After enough years, inevitably, you reach a point where you're ready for real literature - Dostoevsky, Proust, Molière, Kant - the greats.
Some books can't be summarized (poetry and real literature), some can be compressed to about ten pages and the majority to 0 pages.
Don't have an answer unfortunately, still looking for one myself!
I do agree with the method you describe: taking the recommendations of others, and then later navigating toward what you feel is best for yourself
Not if you're like me - my total number read is only about that many in my adult life (other than textbooks and reference books).
That said, how would you pick the “best 100 books” to reread?I also tend to reread things that I enjoyed in the past but it seems like there might be a better way to go about this. I do read from a lot of the “Best books of all time” type of lists and I don’t find a markedly higher success rate with that strategy.
I can’t remember the source, but I like the saying “if a book isn’t worth reading twice it’s probably not worth reading once”
I'm like you, I usually bounce around between fiction and non-fiction to keep my reading balanced. For me, half the fun of reading is simply exploring and discovering new books/authors/series!
For me, my local bookstore has an entire downstairs dedicated to used books, with a few shelves for "new non-fiction" and "new fiction". It's great to check in when I'm nearby just to see what's new.
Make a list of book titles from the footnotes of books I am currently reading. Then just check the average review on Goodreads, if it is over 3.5, I give it a go. This allows me to read about different subjects from respected subject matter experts (since they have been cited in a book I enjoy) while also making sure that they are well written and accessible to a noob (3.5+ rating).
For fiction, I just pick a random book from my local library. Surprisingly, this has served me well so far.
I suggest you look into English translations of books that are highly rated in other languages. Lots of hidden gems to be found this way.
But the question remains. There’s so many books and only so much time. For myself after years of taking a haphazard approach (bill gates list, stuff recommended on blogs, economist books/arts,etc) I’ve been working on a new strategy for the past few years and it feels like it’s working out well.
There is a 10-year reading plan for the “Great Books of the Western World. Within each year the books progress chronologically, and each year supposedly gets a bit more difficult.
Using that as a baseline does a few useful things for me.
- I never need to figure out what book is next.
- I can be reasonably confident that reading the books won’t be a waste; even if I don’t dig a particular book it provides context since, it being an important book, it likely influenced others.
- related to the above, I feel like reading the classic books gives me a better understanding new books; either because of a direct reference by the author or because the author is trying to dress up a not-so-original idea.
Of course the Great Books are not the be-all and end-all of human knowledge, so I make space for modern books, eastern books, etc. for that it’s as haphazard as before, the only difference is I’m more comfortable about skimming a book in(preface, conclusion, index, ToC, random chapter) and tossing it away if it doesn’t jump out at me.
I’ve actively worked on getting better at this. Excited to see other comments in this thread.
Also I recommend underlining and making notes in a book. This way when you go back to it you can engage with the ideas more efficiently.
EDIT: I also want to plug “how to read a book” which I feel like I do a lot on here. Really really good
I hadn’t heard of Great Books of the Western World before but I’ll definitely check it out! I do something similar with movies and “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” which is also a great resource.
I still can’t bring myself to write in books for some reason, but I did take notes on all the non-fiction books I read last year. I haven’t kept up with that because it didn’t seem to help me with processing, remembering, or using the book much beyond being able to find references more easily. It was useful to find the references more quickly but didn’t seem worth the time invested in note taking. I’ll check out “How to Read a Book” to see if I can get better there.
A lot of us have been taught that it's defacing (which it is if it's a library book or a friends' book), but really it's an act of love. There's no surer sign that someone has spent a lot of time with a book than to see it well worn and marked up.
I used to take notes before marking it books. I still do a bit, but the proble is that the notes are lifted out of the context of the book. Not so if you write in it :)
2. Recommendations from public figures I trust (e.g., Tim Ferriss, Derek Sivers, others)
3. References in books I've read
4. Random references in conversation
There's even a website that aggregates books recommended on HN[0]. I have found good books from there on multiple occasions.
A very strong input into my book choices is reading the ‘classics’ in various domains. I will make frequent use of “Top 100 X books in Y” and “best X book of all time” queries.
I very much subscribe to the idea that selected books form a cultural and intellectual endowment of society to its members. Reading these selected books allows me to competently participate in society, as so much of our communication, institutional structure, and culture is downstream of these works. Examples of such works would be Shakespeare, Dickens, Silent Spring, The Intelligent Investor, Manufacturing Consent, Plato’s Republic.
I definitely agree about the classics and I’ve considered devoting an entire year to only reading in that category. Maybe 2021 is the year for it!
A) Not interested --> nice, you saved yourself some time B) Interesting, but feel like the summary is more than good enough, so no need to read the book C) Interesting and you want to learn more because it just scratched the surface --> Read the book!
You can test this framework by listening to the summary of books you've already read that fit into these buckets.
When it comes time to choose a new book to read, I'll select a category (e.g., history, fiction, etc.), sometimes just by picking one, other times by randomly choosing. Then I randomly select 20 books from that category and decide which of the 20 books I am most interested in reading. I also roll a die and 1/3 of the time I will use the same method to pick a book that I've already read to reread. I feel like it gives me a nice diversity in the books I read, but gives me enough choice where I am really interested in the books that I'm reading.
I will follow threads, too. If I liked a book by an author I may continue reading a few more books by the same author. Or if I liked the subject I may read a few more related books on the same subject.
Archive.org or any other public domain pdf source is great for pre1930 texts and I often end up buying them used in paper form. (They are very cheap in Fair/Acceptable condition...university paper libraries are shrinking...now is the time to buy them)
For PD texts, the author will often cite one or two other works in the body of the text. If you liked the original work, you will probably like the in-body cited texts. And you can quickly download a copy for free and see. Spider along the recommendations. This is great for “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”.
For favorite authors, there are usually interviews, or even whole books, available where the author describes works they like. You would probably like the same works too. Nowadays, you may be able to contact the (living) author directly for suggestions. Works about literature, writers, genres are another source. And bibliographies for more academic writing. Sometimes someone has written an annotated bibliography on a subject if you want to be thorough.
Please don’t “optimize” reading for pleasure. The heart chills at the word.
I have never, in my 60 years of reading, ever bought a book because it was on a bestseller list. When I see that monicker on a book, I instinctively avoid it unless I have already discovered it in some other way. It reminds me of junk food advertisements and they can be gamed. I have never regretted following that policy. Nor have I ever been interested in, nor would follow, the book recommendations of celebrities outside of their expertise.
I just read what interests me and inspires creative think about a historical era.
I drive a lot.
