
Reading a book a week for your career - throwaway3157
https://commoncog.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-reading-a-book-a-week-for-your-career/
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Ididntdothis
“Stop reading books you don’t like.”

This can be quite liberating. On the one hand it’s tempting to work through a
book you don’t like but in the end this is often very exhausting.

I also used to look down on a lot of books but now I have no problem reading
Stephen King. He is a damn good writer and fun to read.

~~~
keiferski
I have never understood this attitude, honestly. Some of the most worthwhile
things in life are _difficult_ , literature included. Discarding things
because they don't immediately grab your attention seems like a side effect of
our low-attention span age.

~~~
kbutler
Rather than "difficulty", consider ROI and opportunity cost.

If it's difficult, but you're learning a new skill, expanding your perspective
or capacity, or enjoying the challenge, by all means, keep going.

If you're not enjoying it, and the payoff is just having completed it, and you
could do a lot more valuable/enjoyable stuff with that time, then stop reading
Finnegan's Wake, for goodness sake.

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pvitz
I remember reading Fravia's essay about evaluating sources [0] (e.g. books)
about 20 years ago and it was pretty good advice for me as a teenager. In my
experience, being very picky about the choice of books pays off. There is no
need to read 50 bad books per year if there are two excellent books you can
spend a year with.

[0] [https://fravia.2113.ch/evaluate.htm](https://fravia.2113.ch/evaluate.htm)

~~~
techopoly
And books are not all the same. No matter who you are, it's going to take you
longer to read Ulysses than it will take you to read Hank the Cowdog.

~~~
beckingz
And yet Hank the Cowdog might have a higher return on invested time.

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Apocryphon
As an engineer, it's not as easy to get through technical books in such short
amounts of time.

~~~
ASalazarMX
A book a month would be a more achievable goal, if still unreasonable if
they're all technical books. You can't speed read technical books, specially
if they're about new topics that require practical exercises.

Reading x books doesn't count as learning x topics.

~~~
jniedrauer
I don't know if there are people who can learn complex topics by reading a
book, but I certainly can't. Without any context, I can't keep enough of it in
my head for long enough to build a mental model of the whole system. At best
I'll come away with a vague familiarity with some of terminology. I have to
actually implement parts of it to retain it.

~~~
sciencewolf
Agree with this sentiment. With the exception of very specific topics that
I've encountered in the wild but have no theoretical context on (e.g. Async
JS), I have never been able to learn from a book. Tutorials/blog posts are
great for this because you can stop and implement.

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sciencewolf
I really don't get the goal of reading X books a year. The impact of reading
comes from DOING THE THINGS that the books recommend to do. Often I'll speak
to folks who call themselves "prolific readers", and it'll be obvious that
they've retained a bit here or there-- but few are actually practicing those
things!

Warren Buffet is cited as an example in this article. Sure he reads a lot, but
most it consists of SEC filings and balance sheets. If you examine his quotes,
you'll find he cites ONE book (the Intelligent Investor) over and over again.
He read that one book, and LIVED it for decades. In my opinion, that's a much
better goal than reading a book a week.

~~~
ozim
I care to disagree. I read for getting different perspective on life, having
fun with ideas presented in a book. So I don't retain much and I don't care
about "doing those things" because I am not going to be next Warren Buffet
after reading his biography.

What reading does to my mind is that it shapes "personality". I am not going
to live by the "How to win friends..." but what I got from it is to be more
friendly and open to other people and to be more empathic. I think it kind of
stayed with me even thou I read that book once and did not follow
recommendations to live by it and challenge myself to do all stuff there is in
that book.

Then if you read multiple books and see common ideas presented by many authors
you kind of get really great insights that stay for longer than when you read
one book. Because then you see that more than one person thinks that way.

~~~
sdoering
I second this. Between fiction and non-fiction I read (or mostly listened to)
76 books last year and am currently in my 14th book this year.

I get contact to a lot of ideas from a lot of different points of view. I am
literally bathing my brain in ideas from many different people. Especially
when I am listening to fiction these ideas tend to mingle.

This year, as an additional step, I am playing with the ideas behind the so
called 'Zettelkasten' to better structure the ideas I extract from the books.
And to reach a higher level of retention.

Non the less I mostly listen to books to relax while commuting. So every idea
I gain as additional knowledge is an extra win in my book.

~~~
foogazi
> these ideas tend to mingle.

This is the value I look for too, being able to see references to ideas in
other fields. But I don’t know what it will be until I read and make the
connection

See: Frequency illusion or Baader–Meinhof phenomenon

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anongraddebt
It's so hard to find quality books to read that weren't published decades or
centuries ago.

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ishyfishyy
I think that depends on what you're looking for. Technical books are always
evolving. There's always new fiction. Self-improvement and business books,
especially the best ones I find, are quite old.

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omosubi
I'm not sure I agree with the assertion that podcasts are a bad way to engage
with ideas in the way that books allow you to. Of course many podcasts don't
do this or even proclaim to, but my experience has been that certain
interviewers/podcasters are really good at laying out ideas or worldviews that
you can then evaluate yourself.

The one downside is that they generally take more time to go through and it's
hard to know beforehand whether what you are going to listen to is worthwhile

~~~
awa
Any recommendations on podcasts?

~~~
omosubi
Conversations with Tyler is quite good - I don't agree with him on many things
politically but he has a very idiosyncratic way of looking at things that has
informed my own worldview

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snaveen
I read 1 to 1.5 books a week. I have been reading for sometime now.My problem
is that my friends don’t read much.

Everyone wants to read but don’t enjoy reading as much.

I have a hard time finding people with similar habits.

Most of my friends work on tech industry and is aware of benefits.

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dangus
A book a week...for my career...how many hours do you want me to freaking
work? I already spend 40 at this desk, I’d like a life outside of work,
please.

Bringing up people like Warren Buffet constantly as capitalist idols and role
models is horrifically annoying, too. Nobody’s going to become Warren Buffet
by reading the same quantity of books as him.

~~~
omosubi
I think the point is that reading more will improve you in many ways both in
and outside of work. Of course if you have young children or ageing parents to
take care of that's a different story but for most people the time spent
looking at social media or playing games could be better spent reading.

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keiferski
A general rule of thumb: if a nonfiction book has been published in the past
±30 years, is about some vague new concept like "outliers" or "a Black Swan
event", and is written by someone that hasn't spent decades working in their
field: read the Wikipedia page or a summary instead. You'll save yourself
hours and hours of time.

~~~
ASalazarMX
If you're interested in common reviews, despite all its shortcomings,
GoodReads is still a place where honest reviews can be picked.

