
Read Fewer Books - wormold
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/how-to-read-fewer-books/
======
TheUndead96
The School of Life infuriates me for many reasons, but I will restrain myself
and talk just about this specific post.

Perhaps the small libraries of historic figures has more to do with the
availability of books than it does their minimalism. I agree that people
should not be reading every new self-help or business book that gets
published. The majority of new books are bad. History acts as a great filter,
which is why focussing on old books is a strong heuristic to find good books.
I also agree with Nassim Taleb, who says that you should try to read the works
from people who have actually done something (opposed to modern pseudo-
philosophers like Alain de Botton, who is just trying to capitalise on the
religion-shaped hole in western morality). I am not a religion apologist, but
his videos and lectures are structured exactly the same way as sermons. He
even feigns a false pastor modesty. Ugh I am beginning to rant now.

As a civilisation I still believe that we are not reading enough. I can feel
my reading habit eroded and tugged by modern media. I feel fulfilled after
reading in a way that YouTube or Netflix cannot provide.

~~~
paganel
> I am not a religion apologists, but his videos and lectures are structured
> exactly the same way as sermons. He even feigns a false pastor modesty

I highly recommend Jacques Ellul's "Les nouveaux possédés." (translated in
English as "The New Demons" [1]) an analysis written back in 1973 describing
this exact process you're describing, i.e. modern stuff (rock stars among
others) trying to fill the hole of the disappearing religion. Ever since I've
read the book I cannot attend a big music concert or a crowded football match
without thinking about it (before this pandemic started, of course).

[1]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1362676.The_New_Demons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1362676.The_New_Demons)

~~~
jaaron
I was raised in a highly devout religious environment. I was a true believer
myself.

One of the more remarkable experiences of my early adult life was attending a
sales conference. I couldn't believe how much that business event felt like a
_religious_ event to me. The format, the language, the emotions... I
recognized all of these.

I'm no longer religious in the same way, but those experiences have made me
particularly sensitive the power of faith and community. Once you know what
you're looking for, you start to see it everywhere: in businesses, in
politics, in fandom. People want belonging and a sense of being part of
something greater than themselves. Belief in the supernatural is not required
to engender that feeling.

~~~
tomxor
> People want belonging and a sense of being part of something greater than
> themselves. Belief in the supernatural is not required to engender that
> feeling.

I agree, but feel like this is a not a bad thing most of the time (even though
it can be), and I say this as an atheist in the traditional sense, with
iconoclastic tendencies when provoked...

~~~
novok
The problem, is the same faults of religious movements happen with these
religions-without-the-supernatural, but as an atheist you don't have the same
supernatural to mock as a defense.

You see faith based reasoning and very strong emotional reactions to things
that are not real.

~~~
tomxor
On second thought you are right, there is a lot of faith base nonsense going
on, especially post-facebook.

------
null_object
I simply don't recognize the article's analysis of why we read. I read
(voraciously) during my 'downtime': in bed before sleeping, sitting on the
toilet, during lunchbreaks. Often the times that a lot of people are game-
playing/watching youtube/scrolling FB. I'm not aspiring to "know everything"
or to appear to be an "intelligent person". I think reading a lot is just a
habit.

It may be that I'd be better off reading less, and having more of my own
thoughts. But I find it enjoyable, and after I've read a book I generally feel
like it was a net gain, and not a time-suck (like the aimless surfing I can
sometimes be diverted into). In any case I certainly don't identify with any
need to read a few carefully curated books to "be shaped – deeply shaped in
[my] capacity to live and die well".

I read history, popular nature books, novels, classics, travel - so there's no
pattern or attempt to 'better' myself. It's just fun and passes the time
better than sitting on the john and scrolling a meaningless feed.

~~~
enkid
I'm not a big fan of this article, but I don't think it's advocating reading
less. Rather, it advocates rereading a few core works more. There's something
to be said for knowing a few things well instead of trying to know everything,
but I also think getting exposed to new ideas is important.

~~~
null_object
I think my main disagreement with the entire tenor of the article, is that it
treats reading as just one more aspect of the modern obsession of 'self-
improvement', whereas I read because it's fun.

This doesn't mean that I never re-read a book - last year I re-read War &
Peace, for instance. But I didn't do it to somehow deepen my knowledge of a
'core work' I read it again primarily because it's an immensely enjoyable
narrative.

I also read a book about Ants purely for the fun of it. Now I can barely
remember anything other than a couple of details about soldier ants that are
also suicide bombers (when defeat appears inevitable, they tighten a muscle in
their abdomen that causes their thorax to burst, and spray all the attackers
around them with acid) and that a whole nest of the smallest known ants would
fit inside a single head of the largest known species.

These two facts that I recall now can hardly count as 'deeper knowledge' or
anything pretentious like that. But reading the book gave me a much greater
appreciation of natural phenomena around me, and now when I see an ant's nest
in the forest, I know more about what happens inside, I can discuss it with my
kids and I'm more engaged and aware of my environment. But that's not why I
read the book.

~~~
enkid
I totally agree. I like rereading Terry Pratchett books because I enjoy them.
I reread philosophy books because I want to remember the arguments and get a
new perspective on the work based on new experience. I read books about
physics, biology, history, psychology and other subjects to expose myself to
new ideas and try to expand my thinking. I think there's a ideal mean here
that rereads some and reads new books some.

------
quincunx
Please forgive me the pretentiousness of what I'm about to share, but this is
so great:

"You complain that in your part of the world there is a scant supply of books.
But it is quality, rather than quantity, that matters; a limited list of
reading benefits; a varied assortment serves only for delight. He who would
arrive at the appointed end must follow a single road and not wander through
many ways. What you suggest is not travelling; it is mere tramping." \-
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, #45

This is such a powerful idea to me, from about 2000 years ago, that reading
everything is like drifting aimlessly never arriving anywhere; it's just so
recognizable.

~~~
metaphor
Voltaire's perspective[1] struck me as more compelling:

> _To-day people complain of a surfeit: but it is not for readers to complain;
> the remedy is easy; nothing forces them to read. It is not any the more for
> authors to complain. Those who make the crowd must not cry that they are
> being crushed. Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read!
> and if one read profitably, one would see the deplorable follies to which
> the common people offer themselves as prey every day._

[1]
[https://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volbooks.html](https://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volbooks.html)

~~~
sifar
>> Those who make the crowd must not cry that they are being crushed

Nice. Can be said about the social media/tech companies/leaders.

------
vikramkr
The minimalist attitude to reading in medicine was a disaster. For centuries
"doctors" only studied the classic texts (inaccuracies and all) and reading
widely or seeking new medical knowledge was discouraged or made illegal.
Medicine was correspondingly stagnant. The history of mankind isn't a straight
line of progress, but if you're pointing to the past to show why we should be
doing things differently today, you better make a way more convincing case
than the one presented here about why that aspect of the past was better. At
least try to argue the scholarship of the days past was better than the
scholarship of today (not an easy argument to make). Otherwise, its just like
an argument for a paleo diet - why would I want to adopt a diet for health
reasons based on an idea that said diet was consumed by people that lived
short, brutal lives?

------
paultopia
What total nonsense. Of course medieval scholars had fewer books; books were
much more expensive. Gutenberg hadn't come along yet (or, when Jerome was
around, had just barely come along). Perhaps if the author of this post had
read some history or economics they wouldn't have wasted the time of the
people who had read that blog post.

------
Timpy
> Similarly, in the Ancient Greek world, one was meant to focus in on a close
> knowledge of just two books: Homer’s Odyssey and his Iliad

Can anybody on HN verify if this is true? I thought the Iliad and Odyssey were
only two of Homer's works, the rest of them lost. Why would the Ancient Greek
focus on those two and not any of Homer's not-yet-lost works? Did the Ancient
Greek person really read these as fervently as a modern religious person reads
their holy book? I know classicists debate these things all the time, but it
seems like the author is just riffing "shout out to people who know these
classics." I'll gladly be corrected on this point, but when I read this I
began to suspect the author has no idea what they're talking about.

~~~
goodlifeodyssey
> Did the Ancient Greek person really read these as fervently as a modern
> religious person reads their holy book?

I doubt they viewed Homer like religious people view their sacred texts.
However, Ancient Greek writers do quote and discuss Homer extensively. For
example, Herodotus and Thucydides reference (and speculate) about Homer.
Plato's dialogues refer to Homer a lot. Seneca, several hundred years later,
is still quoting Homer with the assumption that his audience will know the
poems quite well.

------
haffi112
A book is a somewhat large time investment. Often it is worth it but often it
isn't. The main problem is the sheer amount of books out there. Deciding what
to read next is a non-trivial decision problem. Currently I'm basing my
decisions on ratings, recommendations from friends and book clubs.

It would be nice if sites like Goodreads kept statistics on ratings for
second/third/... reading (maybe they do?). Such information could help readers
identify books that are exceptional regarding second/third/... reading.

~~~
Konohamaru
> A book is a somewhat large time investment. Often it is worth it but often
> it isn't.

But everyone has time for reddit/hn/facebook. Sometimes for hours at a day. :}

I posit that the real problem is that books (especially fiction novels) are
engaging but not hypnotic. It's easy to scroll HN because it's literally
hypnotic and thus no thinking required. That's why they're called newsFEEDs.
You're being spoon-fed news. But books demand that you think, and you can't
ignore previous plot developments without becoming disoriented.

If you want to read more books, the first three steps are to:

1\. Admit you have a problem. The problem is NOT that you have a hard time
reading but that you're hypnotized for hours a day.

2\. Realize that total abstinence is the solution. If you had the willpower to
restrict yourself to 30min a day, you wouldn't be here. You are one of those
people too susceptible to hypnosis.

3\. Don't punish yourself. Five minutes a day is far better than nothing. 10
minutes is better than five minutes, etc....

~~~
closeparen
>2\. Realize that total abstinence is the solution. If you had the willpower
to restrict yourself to 30min a day, you wouldn't be here. You are one of
those people too susceptible to hypnosis.

Unfortunately, people who have actually figured out how to do this are not
here on the internet to tell you how.

------
bonoboTP
Well, fewer than what? I'd wager the median person reads 0 (or _perhaps_ 1)
books per year, where a book means something with more than 100 pages and at
least 90% of those pages filled with text and read means read at least 90% of
the words printed. To most people reading is like exercising, dieting,
studying etc. They want to want to do it but don't want to do it.

You must live in a bubble if you think normal people read too many books.

~~~
dublinben
More people report reading a book than you'd think. But the median books read
per year is still too low for this to be a problem the author thinks it is.

[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/26/who-
doesnt-...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/26/who-doesnt-read-
books-in-america/)

------
ginko
>To follow the depiction by Antonello da Messina, St Jerome appears to be the
proud owner of about ten books in all!

It's a fictional depiction some thousand years after the life of St. Jerome.
How is this supposed to be an argument?

From what we know St. Jerome spent much of his life traveling between ancient
libraries, collecting, reading and comparing a large number of different
gospels (both canonical and apocryphal). He also had access to texts which are
now considered lost, like the Gospel of the Hebrews.

------
danidiaz
> Strikingly, the most intelligent and thoughtful intellectual of the early
> church seems to have read fewer things than an average modern eight year
> old. To follow the depiction by Antonello da Messina, St Jerome appears to
> be the proud owner of about ten books in all!

What is a painting from 1475 supposed to tell us about the reading habits of
the real St. Jerome, patron saint of _librarians_?

The paper "A History of Early Christian Libraries from Jesus to Jerome" by
Thomas M. Tanner looks like a good source of information on the subject, but
sadly it's only available from JSTOR.

------
jkingsbery
If the author had read a few more books, he would have known that while St.
Jerome is held in high regard, the Augustine is usually held as the chief
intellectual of the time within the Church, and Augustine read a lot. He was
incredibly well versed, for example, in the works of Cicero and Plato. In a
later phase of the Church, Aquinas was also well read in a variety of sources,
including Aristotle (and perhaps even Muslim writings translated into Latin).
And his teacher, Albert Magnus, shows that the pre-modern mind was very much
interested in the natural world.

I would agree with the point that we should be selective about our reading,
even as we read widely. Focusing on reading things that have stood the test of
time could still keep us busy.

------
the-dude
_Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative
pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls
into lazy habits of thinking._

[https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_einstein_133807](https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_einstein_133807)

~~~
pjmorris
Thanks for this. I've begun a collection of quotes on not reading, to balance
out my much larger collection of books. A couple quotes:

"Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every
sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a
limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works....Everywhere means
nowhere. " \- Seneca

"How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed
every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press -- The press
can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus, we may see
terrorists described as heroes, or secret matters pertaining to one's nation's
defense publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the
privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "Everyone is entitled to know
everything." But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era. People
also have the right not to know and it's a much more valuable one. The right
not to have their divine souls [stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk.] A
person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive
burdening flow of information." \- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harvard
commencement address

~~~
the-dude
My pleasure. The last sentence from the Solzhenitsyn quote seems awfully
relevant today.

------
shannifin
I'm not sure the article's title quite reflects its point, which is that the
amount one reads is not by itself a very useful measure of anything; better to
focus on what you're reading, why you're reading, and how you're reading. A
better title might be: "The amount you read doesn't matter... as much as other
factors" ... or something.

Some random thoughts:

1) Indeed many nonfiction books are full of fluff and filler. While there's a
completionist in me that wants to read every word and finish all books
started, I'm now in the more useful habit of skimming and reading the few
chapters that interest me. I've been intrigued to see services like Blinklist
that summarize the main points, and sometimes I think even those have too much
fluff. Sometimes I grab my notebook to take notes only to find there's not
much to take note of. But I confess, perhaps up to 95% of the nonfiction I
read is ends up being forgotten because it's just not all that useful to me
(more useful is just knowing where I can find the info later if needed).

(Although there are quite a few books, like Taleb's books, that have changed
the way I think about and see the world, but I don't remember the details and
wouldn't be great at giving a worthy summary of them; I'd just recommend the
book.)

2) This topic reminds me of Mortimer Adler's book "How to Read a Book";
although I don't remember all his specific syntax, it really encouraged me to
be more self-conscious about my reasons for reading.

~~~
dorchadas
I'd definitely recommend _How to Read a Book_ if you want to go into deeper
reading. I haven't implemented it fully, though I'd really like to (need to
buy a copy of _How to Read a Book_ to be able to do that, so I can keep
referencing it), but it's definitely made me do some short summaries of fluff
books, which solidifies the concepts I needed to get out of them. It was
useful for that, and I'd love to apply it in more depth.

------
loughnane
My biggest problem with this thinking is that it seems to consider "books" a
unit of measure rather than distinct objects. Surely there are those among us
who use the amount of books we've read as a sort of decoration for our
intellect, but that's not really the point of reading books.The point is to
make the knowledge in the books a part of us so we can live a better life. For
that end some books are clearly better than others.

However I agree with the idea that it's impossible, and I would argue
undesirable, to keep up with the "parade of new titles" put out by publishers.

So if we can't keep up but reading is still worth it, then the question
becomes "How do we decide what to read?".

For my part I've found that the more old books I read the more I realize that
many modern books are ful of old ideas with a slight (sometimes _very_ slight)
twist. So now I'm working through classics and only reading things sparingly.
The criteria I've picked up is:

1\. The book must have been around for at least a few generations

2\. The book must have had a significant impact on how the world, or a field,
is viewed

3\. The book must be highly regarded by those who study it, even if they
disagree with it

4\. The book must deal with topics that are relevant to today (love,
leadership, etc.)

This naturally leads to many so-called "classics". In reading them I've found
that I rarely feel my time has been wasted, I feel I have a broader
perspective, and I feel I've been able to elevate a bit above the frothy front
end of new pop psychology/business/hero worship titles.

~~~
auganov
The problem is, if a book fulfills all your 4 criteria it's extremely unlikely
its "wisdom" hasn't become common knowledge. No surprise = no information.

A truly life changing book would need to have been ignored or misunderstood by
the world at large. But most such books will obviously be junk so I'm not sure
there's a simple way to discover the good ones.

~~~
cafard
C.S. Peirce said that plain English common sense was basically reheated
Aristotle. Is there no information in Aristotle?

~~~
auganov
In the context of learning some valuable already revered wisdom I don't think
you'll find much of it.

Now in a general sense there will be a lot of things you didn't expect in any
book. So tons of information but not the kind you're looking for.

The most interesting thing people who read Marx bring up is how he's been
mischaracterized or had some ideas misattributed to him. Which doesn't
interest me all that much.

------
OnWriting

      > ...answer to the question of why we read, there is only one response that will ever be encompassing and ambitious enough: we read in order to know everything
    

Anecdotally, there's a large amount of people who will read a book wholly for
the purpose of being able to say they've read it. Whether it's a sense of
elitism, vanity or bits of both -- it's strikingly obvious when you ask deeper
questions about a book and they can only respond with basic one sentences you
could infer from the synopsis.

I believe the above has been amplified due to the false dichotomy of
information technology vs good ol' books.

~~~
im3w1l
> it's strikingly obvious when you ask deeper questions about a book and they
> can only respond with basic one sentences you could infer from the synopsis.

When I watch movies with some people they will be "I think I didn't see this
one before". And then half way in, they are like "oh I remember this, I did
watch it after all". Some people are just forgetful.

------
cafard
Someone who photographed my work area might manage to get six books into the
picture, one a coffee-table book brought out so that I could sign some papers
on it out on the porch. I have more than six books, and coffee-table books do
not make up a large fraction. St. Jerome presumably had more than ten books.

Knowing the Aeneid well may have been all that one needed to get out of Eton
or Harrow in the 18th Century. But if you look at what the literate actually
read, they read a good deal. The founders of the US read a fair bit of Roman,
Greek, and English history.

------
r0s
I can heartily recommend skipping books from the "school of life" and any of
their publications.

I was gifted one on relationships, which is a topic I read often. I can say it
was unfocused, terrible advice that seems like the author's rants about their
own frustration with modern love conventions. Reactionary and sneaky with
appeals to religion sprinkled throughout. No useful information, plenty of
hand-wringing about how things were in the old days.

------
katsume3
The Internet has changed how I assimilate knowledge. It has wired my brain to
pay attention to soundbites, rather than lofty tomes. This is why I am the
proud owner of a large list of various short proverbs & idioms that I have
gathered over the years via social media. I only collect the ones that help me
in some way and discard anything that doesn't resonate with me. One example is
this phrase by Lao Tzu

    
    
        A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step[0]
        

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_journey_of_a_thousand_miles_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_journey_of_a_thousand_miles_begins_with_a_single_step)

In every book, you can find little kernels of truth and can distill many
larger points made in a book, down to helpful and short gems of wisdom. For me
this is how I can take a shortcut and avoid reading ridiculous amounts of
books!

Does anyone else do this?

~~~
Loughla
Do you find that boiling everything down to a soundbite or small phrase helps
you improve your critical thinking and logical reasoning skills? Or do you
find it is valuable just for the dopamine hit and feel-goods of cementing your
already established worldviews and perspectives?

The reason I read books is because the author's perspectives are, often,
wildly different from mine. Because of this difference, it helps me understand
other people, and understand my own actions.

I feel like taking everything down to one-liners and ignoring "anything that
doesn't resonate" is just avoiding the real work of thinking about yourself
and your place in society. For example - Lao Tzu's perspectives about
technology and how to balance external desires with my own personal views on
how to integrate technology into my life have been immensely helpful in
raising a family - I'm not sure I would've gotten that with just soundbites.

~~~
katsume3
> is just avoiding the real work of thinking about yourself and your place in
> society

Well sometimes idioms / proverbs can contradict each other. Take for example
the Russian proverb

    
    
        If you try chasing two rabbits, you will end up catching none
    

Does this mean I have to be singularly focused on one task all the time, and
not multitask? Hardly.

There are other quotes which challenge that proverb and inspire us to be
multitaskers and 'do all the things' at the same time.

As I stated: my brain can't cope with a lofty tome, and prefers soundbites.
It's how I'm wired, and I leverage that. I also integrate these proverbs into
family life and use them as a guide, no different than reading loads of books.
But horses for courses; if reading loads of books suits you, then do it!

------
alphadevx
What a strange set of conclusions. The author also misses out on one important
point: many of us read books for pleasure, NOT because we feel pressure to
read from society. I have a large collection of physical books in my TBR pile,
and not one cent of guilt about that (even their presence on my shelves makes
me happy).

------
jonstaab
I thought this was going to be a typical HN "build things instead" thing, but
I actually love their take. Looking at the world around us lately I've been
realizing more and more that "it's all in Plato"; his Republic is a book I
read once in high school, but it's high time to re-read it.

What are some books you find your self going back to repeatedly (or want to)?
My list:

\- Domain Driven Design

\- Ray Bradbury's short stories and Farenheit 451

\- George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier

\- Descent into Hell

\- LotR, the Hobbit, and Narnia

\- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

\- Psalms, Job, James

\- The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

\- Wendell Berry's Essays

\- Winnie the Pooh

\- Augustine

Guess you know what kind of person I am now.

~~~
georgefrick
\- F-451

\- The Winter of Our Discontent

\- Man's Search For Meaning

~~~
jonstaab
I love Steinbeck, but I had never heard of The Winter of Our Discontent,
thanks!

------
Saint_Genet
Aside from being unbearably pretentious, this fella doesn't seem to have heard
about reading for pleasure.

~~~
Barrin92
There's been a few comments in the thread like this but I think this is a
deeply unhealthy understanding of pleasure. Pleasure does not mean simple, or
effortlessly or easy.

Genuine or deeper pleasure means acquiring understanding and develop better
senses. Masturbation is pleasure, but it's no replacement for an intimate
relationship.

Warming up a pizza is pleasurable, but you would lose out on a lot of
experiences if you never developed any taste beyond that. Exercising is a
drag, but once you actually learn what your body can do, it's much more
genuinely rewarding than sitting on the sofa.

Reading critically, reading deeply, despite maybe being hard, is not the
opposite of pleasurable once you develop the faculties for it. Which everyone
can I believe.

------
sys_64738
Reading isn't about intelligence. It's about knowledge. Knowledge expands the
mind but doesn't necessarily make you more intelligent. E.g. I can read as
many theoretical maths books as needed but it'll always be over my head. But
if I read a C++ book then I might get a job versus reading a Java book.

------
watwut
I find the first paragraph to be a strawman of reality. Most people these days
dont read books and I cant really recall competitive approach to reading among
my social circles. Maybe author lives in different bubble, I dont know.

Also, I read Homer’s Odyssey and while it was fun and interesting, I dont
think I found that to be "perfect repository" of pretty much anything. It is
story, made up story with surprisingly good characters, but I dont think it
taught me everything I want to know.

Anyway, lately I enjoyed history and memoirs or biographies of lesser players.
The primary thing they are giving me is awareness that real world history has
great variety in and and real world people are not as simple as Odyssey make
it to be. For example, the point of view of non warrior Jew dying or surviving
WWII makes you look at warrior honor code much differently. And so does
Hitlers biography and so does Rosa Park biography or so does description of
expansion or details of how civil war came to be.

I am not saying that everyone must read the same books as me. But claim that
few of them are all there is to know is just wrong. When you read just one
resource, you know everything and everything looks uncomplicated and simple.
When you start to draw on multiple resources, that is when things start to get
interesting and complex. And that is also when things start to be easier to
remember.

------
yuribro
I can only assume it's implied that the type of books this is about are
philosophical (in the most broad sense, including self improvement) books, and
so it makes sense to talk about religious books as examples?

People read for a variety of reasons, from professional books to books purely
for entertainment. It also has to be said that while in those "pre-modern"
times books were the most common medium, today there are many different ways
to consume knowledge: newspapers, journals, blog posts and websites, graphic
novels as written material, and we also have radio, tv, film, podcasts and
many other types of source which serve the same role as books once did.

------
blain_the_train
I got a headstart by not reading this article.

------
JdeBP
I've seen a number of religious cults dressed up as bookshops in my life, and
this, with all of its expensive "counselling", "therapy", and "classes", looks
to me like another one.

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leokennis
Although the article is pretty pretentious, it does resonate with a though
I've had for a long time and also commented about earlier (it's not an
original thought at all):

Why is everything a contest these days?

Who cares that I read 40 books last year, you read 120 and my neighbour read
2? Does that make us better or worse people? You can do 1000's of things in
life or you can do nothing. No one asked to be brought into this world. No one
will stay on this world forever.

Just do whatever makes you go through your day in the most content way. Life
is hard enough as it is.

~~~
watwut
> Who cares that I read 40 books last year, you read 120 and my neighbour read
> 2?

Most likely, no one, which is why opening of that character is nonsense.

------
friendlybus
Can't say I agree at all. The self-improvement crowd emphasize interest and
small daily gains, not maximization of everything. Some people don't read to
know everything, some read to know something. Which can be a lot.

Not a big fan of school of life's work.

------
tmaly
I try to avoid buying anymore books. Time becomes such a precious thing in
modern life.

I seek to make knowledge actionable, to practice just in time learning. That
is, if I need some knowledge to move forward on a task, then and only then do
I turn to a book.

------
leafboi
The thing with reading is that the main point is often buried beneath realms
of text. A movie can deliver the same concept in two hours when a book
typically takes several days.

Another thing with reading is that there's no logical reason why the content
you're reading is better than television. If TV can have crap so can books.

I have found that reading builds biases better than television. The reason is
that reading takes much more effort than television and oftentimes the more
effort you spend on something the more bias towards it you develop.

I've found that in general if you want to have a larger breadth of
knowledge... youtube videos are actually awesome at distilling concepts and
getting to the main point.

I'm saying this as someone who use to and still actively reads books.

------
gmadsen
Not sure if the school of life produces anything of value, but this article
certainly put a sour taste in my mouth.

It philosophizes about a non existent problem and gives un needed advice.

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mcguire
Tl;dr: " _Reading was held to be extremely important, but the number of new
books one read was entirely by the by. This wasn’t principally an economic
point. Books were very expensive of course, but this wasn’t really the issue.
What mattered was to read a few books very well, not squander one’s attention
promiscuously on a great number of volumes._ "

Reading deeply and critically is important; to do otherwise is to just let the
words wash over you without leaving an impression.

Reading promiscuously was regarded as bad historically not because it
squandered attention but because most books were considered full of lies and
the majority of readers couldn't be trusted to separate the truth from
falsehood.

On the other hand, if your dozen books are made up of Ayn Rand, Malcolm
Gladwell, and Seth Godin, you may find that your worldview is as limited as
any medieval scholastic.

------
brian_herman__
It would be ironic if the next post was Read Fewer Blogs.

------
wwright
Click Fewer Links

------
martin_a
All those "Oh, I have read sooooo many books this year!"-thing is just another
elitist posture.

It's pretty much like the minimalists who run around and tell people that they
only own a MBP and an iPhone XPro+ (or whatever the maxed out version is) and
two potted plants. Most people will not have enough disposable income to buy a
full-fletched MBP and that iPhone.

You need to be rich (kind of) to be able to have a minimalist lifestyle. The
same goes with reading.

Most people will just try to make ends meet, juggle with bringing job,
familiy, friends, sports/staying healthy under one hat and in the evening they
don't want to process any more information from a book.

Their everyday life is SO packed with everything, there's no time to sit back,
relax and read 25 books a year.

So, yeah, read two books a year and call it a day.

~~~
voxl
>You need to be rich (kind of) to be able to have a minimalist lifestyle. The
same goes with reading.

This is the second time I've seen someone make this claim and the second time
I'll refute it: Minimalism is not a rich-specific ideology. Being minimal as
benefits if you're poor, including making it much easier to move. Moreover,
you might be "minimalist" without choice, merely because you can't afford to
buy things. You could be angry at your lack of material possessions or you
could temporarily embrace the ideology to help you get to a position where you
can start collecting items that make you happy.

Imagine you are poor and have a broken microwave, but you've been holding on
to it. Why? Are you going to fix it? Likely not (at least not well, and its a
dangerous thing to get wrong). Just throw it out or sell it for parts. Just
because you are poor does not mean you should hold on to things that merely
take up space.

~~~
lmm
When you're poor you have to hold on to things that you might need, or that
sort-of work. You keep your old phone with a broken screen because your
current one might get stolen (or you might have to sell it). You keep a broken
microwave because you can use it in a pinch (maybe it works if you hold the
door shut, or if you angle the cord just so), or you might scavenge some parts
from it, or you might have have to fix it as best you can even though that's
dangerous. You can't afford the transaction costs of just selling everything.

