
A woman who went to the library and read every book on the shelf (2014) - Tomte
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/16/phyllis-rose-the-shelf-library-book
======
Jun8
Brought to mind the parable of the hunter guide shaman:

"The livelihood of an ancient indian tribe was buffalo hunting. If the hunters
came back with a small amount of kill or, unimaginable, empty-handed, from
their Springtime hunts, the village would go mostly hungry for the next four
months and many people would die. Luckily, before each hunt the village's
shaman gave the head of the hunters a map with lines drawn on a hide that will
guide the group to where the buffalo is. Without this map, the hunters
wouldn't find where the buffalo gathered on the Great Plains.

A young hunter was curious about how the shaman always knew where the buffalo
gathered, so before the Springtime Hunting Festival, he hid in the shaman's
tipi and secretly watched jim as he prepared the map. There were many steps
involved but in essence the shaman did the following: After calling on divine
powers he crumpled a large raw piece of hide that was softened with oils. That
was it! Then the lines to guide the hunters appeared correctly drawn by gods'
will every time the map was created."

I usually employ a similar random search strategy (e.g.
[http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume13/bergstra12a/bergstra12a....](http://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume13/bergstra12a/bergstra12a.pdf))
to select a book when I'm at a library, though not as extensive as the method
described in the article.

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jl6
I used to read a lot. I had a long, long to-read list in a spreadsheet, and I
would add items to it faster than I would tick them off.

Competing demands for my time cured me of this list, and I came to view
reading not as something indisputably virtuous (as my schooling had trained me
to do), but as just another form of consumption.

There is such a thing as too much consumption. Junk books are no better than
junk food, and even a diet of classics might be no better for your head than
constant fine dining is for your gut.

I now take more care in choosing to give my time and energy to reading.

~~~
omaranto
That idea that reading is inherently virtuous has bothered me my whole life! I
read a lot (well, at least I did before I had children) and have always been
complimented on it which annoyed me to no end because I knew much of what I
read was pretty trashy. I've had to explain to people so many times that a
good portion of the books I read are no better than the movies or TV shows
they watch, I just happen to like reading to relax.

And by the way, I don't believe in giving up on junk books. I think a good mix
of fun but trashy and serious books is better. Just like anything in life: I
wouldn't want to have only deep meaningful conversations or eat only fine
dining or only write computer programs that do something useful or stop
playing basketball just because I'm terrible at it or learn only prestigious
fields of math... I think it's OK to do something just for fun, not everything
needs to be edifying.

~~~
gozzoo
Can you give some examples of 'fun but trashy' books?

~~~
KGIII
The Destroyer Series, about Remo Wlliams, Chiun, and the martial art known as
Sinanju. They even made a movie and a tv pilot.

They are absolutely horrible. They give you nothing of value, not even
education. They were mostly written by two authors who grew to despise each
other,

They take a couple of hours to read, maybe a little more. They are the
pinnacle of pointless time wasting. I read most of them while in the service.

They are perfect in every way.

------
ChuckMcM
A high school friend of mine did a 'Pi tour' of the library where they read
the 'nth' book on the shelf for each 2 digits of Pi. So book 31 on the first
shelf, but 41 on the next, 59th on the next. There wasn't anything magical
about using Pi for this, it merely provided the backdrop and gave some
'flavor' to the choices other than random. He had to get creative when the
shelf didn't have enough volumes on it (typically he would do banker's
division by 2).

The result was he found some interesting books (and some turds too). I could
not argue with his logic that 20 years later none of the information I got
sitting through an hour of the "Six Million Dollar Man" would be useful but
something he got from one of the books might be.

~~~
asp_hornet
cool idea. I tried googling "banker's division" and got nothing, what is it?

~~~
bhchance
Try "banker's rounding"

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SeanDav
> _" Rose isn't a dinosaur reader; she likes her Kindle."_

I am probably a "dinosaur" reader. I have, and use a Kindle, but given the
choice of reading a physical book or same book on Kindle, I will choose
physical book 99% of the time.

There is just something about a real book that is deeply satisfying to read.

~~~
JoshMnem
It appears that paper content is better than electronic, at least for
retention of material:

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-
absorb...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb-less-
kindles-paper-study-plot-ereader-digitisation)

Ebooks also might negatively affect sleep:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30574260](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30574260)

~~~
amorphid
I need to bounce around in a book. Flipping physical pages is way easier than
scrolling around in an ebook reader.

~~~
erikbye
I do most of my reading on physical books, but I have the core of my library
on a Kindle as well, and where it shines is search. I can phrase and keyword
search the larger part of my library. It has become an invaluable research
tool. I also import highlighted passages into a database on my computer.
Granted there are things like books.google.com, which I could use for search,
but that's not my library. I also prefer to read on a Kindle compared to my
monitor, so I regularly email large documents to it. My wish for the next
Kindle is for it to be faster (more responsive UI) and handle even larger
libraries.

------
Chiba-City
Reading is more fun in discussion groups or even reading aloud with
discussion. Immersive fiction reading is just one special mode of reading. The
focus of research reading is more intensive than immersive. There is some
social intent. HN is a lovely reading group.

~~~
Chiba-City
The simplest things are not contextualized. The methods are sold like aspirin
for any pain point. We confuse methods with instant "solutions." The best
salad recipes fail of unripe or overripe ingredients. We might better
contextualize method with case examples sharing some measurable comparative
formalisms. Then we confuse project execution success with market penetration
or buyout acquihire payday dreams.

Close attention and years of reading are important to writing code worth
writing. I read literature oriented around "skunkworks" sized teams and
applied them at somewhat similar scales. The better literature is fantastic.
But the literature presumes too much of readers and means little outside
operative exposure to multiple successful applications. Folks seeking method
for quick home runs are barking up the wrong trees from the beginning.

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ryanx435
How do journalists hear about this type of story? Did the lady call up her
local newspaper and say "hey I just read every book on the shelf at the
library. Thought it was newsworthy."

~~~
jasonthevillain
Not at all. Most reporters have a beat. They accrue and build relationships
with sources around a broad subject. If you're reporting on books (the author
does), you'd probably know quite a few a librarians who you keep in touch with
just to hear what's going on.

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a_bonobo
I've tried this too during a lull in my undergrad studies - it's how I
discovered my love for Kobo Abe. Didn't get much further than AB though...

~~~
sswaner
I did the same in elementary school. I started at the first shelf with the
intention of reading every book in the non-fiction section as my plan to know
everything I needed to know. I made it 4 or 5 shelves but then lost my
determination when a librarian informed me that she was adding new books to
the shelves I had finished. I then switched to a more directed reading agenda
based on a plan.

~~~
kwoff
I'm learning Dutch on Duolingo, and they recently updated the "Tree".
Basically whenever they do that, you lose a lot of your "progress", and have
to revisit (months of) previous sections that you'd already completed (because
some new things are added to previous subjects). It sounds similar to what you
described (very demotivating), and seems (from comments on the site) to
especially affect people who are relatively newer to the site. I'm not sure
yet, but I think there's a mismatch between gamification and motivation for
actual learning.

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jankotek
Friend did something similar as a kid. Main advantage is not to find rare
gems, but to filter out genres you do not like. No fear of missing out...

~~~
Grustaf
This was my plan as well, until I read Nausea. The Autodidact is not someone
you come away wanting to emulate.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autodidact](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autodidact)

------
juskrey
It's not what you read, it's what you don't.

