
Ask HN: Good non-fiction books without filler? - branislav
As probably many of you, I notice my attention span being diminished by the usage of internet and social media.<p>I set a goal for myself to focus on reading more books and long-form articles, but I&#x27;m finding it harder to find those which don&#x27;t spend a lot of words on filler. (as discussed in https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17803873)<p>What are some books&#x2F;authors which are straight to the point and the reader doesn&#x27;t have to wade through pages of personal stories to illustrate a simple point?
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yesenadam
It sounds like maybe you would like the genre of aphorisms. By definition,
there's no filler at all.

My favourites (which are also mostly those with the highest reputation, don't
just take my word for it) are:

La Rochefoucauld's _Maxims_ \- scathing about _your_ character and it's fabric
of vanity and self-love. I find it very funny, for all the terrible things
he's always saying about me. It was all polished in the 17th french salons to
say the most with the fewest words.

La Bruyere - _Characters_ \- slightly longer average length, mostly less
savage than La R, still he knows how to sink the boot into humanity, men,
women. An example:

 _Children are haughty, disdainful, quick to anger, envious, curious, self-
seeking, lazy, fickle, timid, intemperate, untruthful, secretive; they laugh
and weep readily; the most trivial subjects give them immoderate delight or
bitter distress; they wish not to be hurt, but they like hurting others: they
are men already._

Didn't see that coming, did you. :-)

Lichtenberg - _Aphorisms_ \- He was a scientist, thinker, wondering about
everything, questioning everything.

All these were favourites of Nietzsche, whose work contains a lot of
aphorisms, although it's mostly written in self-contained paragraphs. (except
_Zarathustra_ and _Untimely Essays_ )

Gracian's _Art of Worldly Wisdom_ also is written in short paragraphs, and I'd
say filler-free. It's a guide to living, maybe the best one I know.

There are a lot of wonderful aphorisms in Emerson, Boswell's Johnson,
Kierkegaard, Oscar Wilde etc although I guess they "spend a lot of words on
filler", but I thought I'd mention them.

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m10n
Best-selling authors seem to be aware of this trend, because I keep coming
across excellent but very, very short non-fiction books. Among those I can
remember reading and would recommend, these are published in the past <5 years
and are <150 pages (or <5 hour audiobook):

\- Discrimination and Disparities By: Thomas Sowell

\- A Colony in a Nation: Chris Hayes

\- Between the World and Me: Ta-Nehisi Coates

(three very different takes on race relations in America)

\- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: Neil deGrasse Tyson

\- Seven Brief Lessons on Physics: Carlo Rovelli

\- When Breath Becomes Air: Paul Kalanithi

\- On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century: Timothy Snyder

\- Requiem for the American Dream: The Principles of Concentrated Wealth and
Power: Noam Chomsky

\- Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now: Jaron
Lanier

[edit: linebreaks]

~~~
rubinelli
That's a big advantage of ebooks: a book that would have been padded to fit a
certain length/size slot can now be the size that the subject requires, and no
more.

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tankmohit11
Read The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It is available for free online. It's
straight to the point. Each line of this book can be used as a quote.

Other books I found without filler is 48 laws of power. It is a also a good
read.

~~~
unmole
I would actually suggest buying the Hays translation of Meditations instead of
reading the free versions. The language in every other version is overly
verbose and archaic.

~~~
kashyapc
Indeed, I agree. I'm ~70% through the translation by Gregory Hays. FWIW I've
picked up this translation after some research; there are several of them.
Hays' translation also as a nice reference on related reading in the book's
introduction chapter.

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colangelod
The Victorian Internet By Tom Standage, solid read on the history and
progression of communication tech up through the dropping of the transatlantic
cable. To the point with lots of history I did not know before reading it.

Forever Young by John W. Young; haven't quite finished it yet but its great so
far. He is perhaps one of the most prolific astronauts to have served at NASA
and has lots of great stories.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions By Edwin A. Abbott; Its short but its a
solid read (especially considering its age) great thought piece on
multidimensional space.

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cm2012
How to lie with statistics. Oldie but goodie, very short.

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amadeuspagel
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

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jf26028
Im not affiliated, but I think www.blinkist.com is excellent. The summaries
are very, very short, and if you like the message, you can buy the book. It
has both audio and text as well.

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jamestimmins
The Master Switch by Tim Wu. Absolutely phenomenal, and only more impressive
because he covers > 100 years in communications tech in < 400 pages.

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combatentropy
_The Elements of Style_ by William Strunk and E. B. White

 _The Language Instinct_ by Steven Pinker

 _The Problem of Pain_ by C. S. Lewis

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mpax
A Brief History of Time, by Hawking

