
The Need to Read - jseliger
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-need-to-read-1480083086
======
udkl
I don't read entire non-fiction books anymore but just search for it's
summaries or notes.

Most non-fiction books revolve around a few central ideas. Once you
internalize this you realize it isn't necessary to read the entire book. You
just need to read the summary and notes that someone else has written.

For eg : I'm currently going through the book notes that Derek Sivers has
written and just posted this last night :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042438](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13042438)

Another source of (business book) summaries is Actionable Books Weekly :
[http://www.actionablebooks.com/en-ca/](http://www.actionablebooks.com/en-ca/)

Sometimes a good review on Amazon sufficiently maps the ideas in the book and
is all that is required.

Further, you don't always have to buy the books. Your free local public
libraries carry a lot of these books and even have the digital version that
you can borrow.

~~~
ahultgren
A big advantage of taking the time to read a book, even if the book has just
one central idea, is that it forces you to spend 5+ hours thinking on that
idea. No summary can do that for you. I'd even go so far as to say that it's
not even important which book or idea you spend that time on; just spending
time with your own thoughts and imagination will teach you things no non-
fiction or summary can.

I do agree that summaries and comments are useful, but they serve the same
purpose as non-fiction rather than fiction.

~~~
udkl
It also depends on how you approach the notes.

I for example make notes of the notes and then re-visit them frequently over
the next few days. This helps me visualize and concretize the ideas in
different ways since I'm revising them at different times. In the interim I'm
trying to incorporate them in everyday life.

~~~
georgecarlin
Tbh this sounds like more work than just reading the book

------
vinceguidry
I've moved most of my reading activity from books to long-form journalism
articles, Stratfor, HN, and Quora. That said, books have not completely left
my life. There's a certain cross-section of really really smart people, who
encode their ideas only in books. These ideas are foundational, they provide
the bedrock on which I understand the rest of it.

These ideas, you think you've read half a book and gotten the gist, but as
time wears on, the ideas take on new life. Take, for example, a book like
_Guns, Germs, and Steel_. I'm not going to go back and reread that book, but
the underlying idea of geography as a fundamental determinant of society, is
worth revisiting as time goes on. Because you miss things. You miss the full
depth of what and how.

I find myself reading fewer books, and spending more time with each one. I
savor each chapter, considering the implications over the next day before I
read the next. The latest book I've read is _The Dictator 's Handbook_, and
I've found it pivotal. It places so much in perspective. The idea that
corporate governance and small-country tyranny would have so much in common is
something you just agree with because it sounds so right, but the book
actually walks you through how and why.

That's what I'm looking for in a book. Something that totally changes how I
look at a certain aspect of the world. Anything else just isn't worth the
time.

~~~
bobrocket
I find the only nonfiction books I read are practically textbooks on software,
physics, or engineering. That said fiction can present new ideas like no
other. They change the way you see the world.

I do as you do, reading slowly and focusing on each chapter. I read the
chapter and hand write a summary afterwards to allow myself to reflect on
everything and ingrain what I have read. This is not be a quick process, but I
enjoy it and try my best to improve my poor writing.

I envy the leisure of older generations where entertainment was reading and
writing. From my experience the crisp writing of the past has morphed into
ambiguity. I can't help but think constant TV, phone, and internet hinders our
writing.

------
codingdave
I agree with the gist of this article, but it feels like the details are
trying too hard. Books are great, and do add value to your life and help you
educate yourself. But the improvements they make in your life are not
automatic - you need to actively engage with the content. Neither are they
unique - if you engage with meaningful content, of any kind, you can learn and
improve yourself.

Books are wonderful. But they are not magic. Nevertheless, I do fully agree
with the larger point that people should keep reading them.

~~~
dominotw
> Neither are they unique - if you engage with meaningful content, of any
> kind, you can learn and improve yourself.

Youtube has been godsend for me last couple of years. It exposed my own
ignorance about how little I knew about the world.

Now I usually type in 'BBC documentary' into youtube every night and watch it
in bed. Also helps me get rid of some of the self-centered pre-bed anxiety.

~~~
lobotryas
I hope you use f.lux or something similar if you're in front of a screen
before going to bed. Otherwise the blue light from the monitor is likely doing
your sleep more harm than watching the documentary.

~~~
truth_sentinell
Actually the harm to your sleep is done when using your computer in the night,
rather than specifically in bed with your lights off.

------
hackuser
I read more and more books now. My findings:

1) There is a very strong relationship between the length of time it takes to
compose something and its 'value'. [0] That shouldn't be a surprise. Twitter
is on one end of that spectrum, books are on the other.

2) The range of value is far wider than people can conceive of. I know this
fact yet in my tiny human mind I can't conceive of the entire breadth of that
spectrum, and I inevitably lose perspective and get wrapped up in my what I'm
currently reading.

3) The highest value content , addressing the same topic as lower value
content, has entirely different things to say, different questions to ask,
different (i.e., real) knowledge. When I read it (I tend to forget otherwise;
see #2), I am reminded that the lower value content - and I mean 99% of what's
out there - is bad information; it either addresses the wrong questions, is
based on the wrong knowledge, or is flat out ignorant and/or deceitful.

EDIT: 3.5) High value content is far more efficient and rewarding: One good
high-value book saves you far more time sifting through 99% of the rest. Also,
the pleasure and reward of interacting with humanities geniuses through their
words far exceeds that of reading hyperbolic tweets by the 99.9999% who have
far less talent and knowledge (not excluding myself). Finally, you absorb some
of the habits of what you read; read the best and you absorb the best - great
writing, high standards, clear thinking, etc.

4) There exists is far more of the highest value content than I have time to
read in my life.

So why read anything else?

....

[0] Value: For lack of a better term, I'll use value: It can include anything
from directly applicable information to deep knowledge to artistic beauty.

~~~
ctchocula
What you say sounds intriguing. Do you have any examples of the wide gap
between high-value content vs. low-value mentioned in 3? Any pointers to high-
value content since you mention there is much?

~~~
hackuser
I have many ideas on this subject; I'm going to spend more time writing this
than editing it, but I'll try to structure it so it's easier to skim ... I
hope it's helpful and not too long!

> any examples of the wide gap between high-value content vs. low-value

A few spring to mind:

* Science: Compare IPCC reports with almost any discussion on climate change. If you take the time to read just the IPCC 'summary reports for policy makers', you quickly learn that almost all popular discussion of it is nonsense - the wrong questions based on wrong information, like discussing the quality of ice fishing in the Sahara - a waste of your time and worse, misinformation. A related example: Publications such as Nature and Science are so different than popular coverage of science, it's as if they are covering a different field of human knowledge.

* International relations (i.e., foreign policy, etc.): I've taken the time to find the expert publications and, as in other fields, you quickly realize that they are a goldmine of knowledge and almost everything else - even 'experts' writing editorials in the NYT or WSJ - is ignorant and/or deceitful. The non-partisan think tanks are very good: Brookings, Carnegie Endowment, CSIS, the Lowy Institute in Australia is great and a different perspective ... I have a much longer list if you re interested, and I next mean to look into the leading academic publications.

* Think of a field you have deep expertise in; do outsiders really have a clue? For example, IT security: Even IT pros on HN have large blind spots and most of the public is clueless. The language spoken by IT security experts, the questions asked, the solutions, are very different than what everyone else says. You need to read the right books, not just any book, to gain real knowledge.

* Next time you need to research something, look at the usual sources via Google web search, then look at scholarly publications (e.g., via Google Scholar). IME, often the former seems valuable and persuasive until I read the latter, and then the popular stuff seems frighteningly misinformed.

\----

> Any pointers to high-value content since you mention there is much?

Of course it depends on the field you are interested in; there is far more to
read in any field than you have time for, unless you want a masters degree in
it. There are more great works of literature than we have time to read; why
read anything less? (There are reasons, but you get my point.) Examples:

* In the last few years I decided to read Confucius' Analects, an obvious example of a high-value book - why read _about_ it and _about_ Chinese culture when I can just read the Master himself? - but which translation? Great writers are subtle and likely have a breadth and depth of ideas far beyond their translator's grasp (unless their translator also is a genius and expert in the same field). Amazon reviewers seemed persuasive and helpful - until I turned to journal articles by experts in the field. Then I learned once and for all that Amazon reviewers often sound good but have no clue; the Amazon reviews turned out to almost all useless or worse - I almost believed them.

* I'm reading The Inferno by Dante now (translated by John Sinclair, as recommended by a professor in the field). It's one of the most beautiful, moving, exceptional works of art I've ever encountered. It's a loss to the world that anyone doesn't get to see what I see.

* I recently bought the Koran (after researching translations). A billion people are talking about Islam; hardly any have a clue about what they are saying - they just repeat low-value information. Rather than spending hours reading all that, I'll spend it on one high value book and know far, far more. And I'll also need to find a high-value book, maybe sociology, on how Islam actually is understood and practiced today.

(Certainly not all high-value works are 'classic' books like the Analects,
Inferno, or Koran, though consider that there are thousands of years of
writing by smart people to mine; if you picked the best of each century you'd
have a lot of reading to do.)

\----

A few tips based on my experience (low-value info, but I've never seen
anything good on the subject!):

* Much of the high value stuff can be intimidating, has bad associations (from when you were forced to read it in school before you were ready) or has a status that overwhelms the ability to see it for the flawed, human genius that it is. Get by those issues, form your own opinion with fresh eyes, and you usually discover that, hey, this is flawed but is indeed absolutely brilliant and wonderful. Much is a great pleasure to read (see Dante, above) - extremely talented people tend to master writing well too, and there is a reason so many love it. Some is indeed dry and much of it is challenging - but I've become more accustomed to that and find low-value stuff often lacks the richness, depth and brilliance I've come to expect.

* Follow your nose; be opportunistic; keep asking questions about the world: When I'm asking the questions that the book also asks or addresses, that's a good time to start reading it. Also, my instincts about what I'm interested in also are a good guide to what I'm ready for; or if a work angers me then usually that's because it's challenging me and I really need to read it. If I don't grasp some art-form or artist, I keep my eyes open for when it suddenly resonates and then read/watch/etc. I get much less out of randomly chosen books, no matter how brilliant.

* Unless you are superhuman, low-value stuff can be very persuasive without high-value stuff to compare it to (see my Confucius example, above). Humans just have very limited ability to see through nonsense. If you've never been to Fiji, how could you tell if someone is giving you good or bad information about it?

* Try not to settle for less than the best: Knowledge based on research and above all, expertise; art from the true geniuses. Unless you are diving deep, the settled knowledge of a field is the best starting place - imperfect like all human knowledge, but far better than the alternatives. Amateurs, even smart, studied ones, have gaping blind spots. The high-value experts aren't gods, but when I approach them with healthy skepticism I find I appreciate them even more: They often turn out to be real people who achieved true genius and who created amazing works of art and knowledge.

* Most people have developed the skills and resources to quickly find and evaluate low-value information, such as using Google web search and knowing Quora from Reddit from StackExchange. You'll need to develop the skills and resources for high-value stuff (see below) but once you do using them becomes far more efficient.

* The best resources on general topics that I've found (I'm still a bit of a novice myself): Google Scholar, JSTOR (if you can get access; it usually requires privileges at a university library), and most valuable in their way, reference specialists at university (not public) libraries (for example, there may be a Russian history reference specialist): They can immediately tell you which book or paper is the leader in its field, its strengths and weaknesses, etc., and can distinguish between books that are fringe ideas, experts' advocacy of their pet hypotheses, and settled knowledge. Most will help the public but you need to respect their time: Do your homework, carefully prepare your question, be patient, and don't expect many followups.

~~~
Nition
I have another example of this sort of thing that I came across recently.

There is much talk here in New Zealand, as there is in the US, about the
possibility of a Universal Basic Income.

Looking it up, I found a relatively short investigation into the idea
commissioned by the government back in 2010[1], that has more real statistics
and conclusions than all the other talk I've ever seen put together.

What you call "high-value" writing still, of course, has the possibility of
errors, bias, etc. But man is it still more informative to read than
everything else.

Of course the punishment for reading this stuff is the pain of living in a
world full of people commenting who "didn't read the article." :p

[1] Available here:
[http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/WelfareWorkingGroup/Downloads/Wor...](http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/WelfareWorkingGroup/Downloads/Working%20papers/Treasury-
A-Guaranteed-Minimum-Income-for-New-Zealand%20.PDF)

~~~
hackuser
Thanks; agreed; exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

> the punishment for reading this stuff is the pain of living in a world full
> of people commenting who "didn't read the article." :p

Yup. And watch them take us blindly into calamity after calamity because they
can't be bothered to click a link.

~~~
Nition
This sort of thing pops up everywhere, I'm glad you pointed it out in words
here because it's made me think about it a bit more clearly myself.

For instance you get programming threads where people will spend pages arguing
about whether something is more efficient than something else, hours of their
time, before someone finally spends five minutes running an actual benchmark.

------
punnerud
If you can't read, try this link:
[https://www.google.no/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.no/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwidy5aEn8fQAhVMkSwKHc1_BFEQqQIIHDAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe-
need-to-read-1480083086&usg=AFQjCNHz-FOxI7BU4lqyMfmP6Ioeu8M8Mw)

~~~
edpichler
Thank you, what this Google URL did tho the payed article?

~~~
derimagia
They just react differently to google's bots since they would be negatively
impacted if they didn't have the entire article there.

------
tristanho
Very insightful article. I find it crazy how few people I know read.
Successful people seem to unanimously agree with the article that books are
"one of the best ways to engage with the world, become a better person and
understand life’s questions, big and small".

From Warren Buffett[0] to patio11[1] to Bill Gates[2] to Patrick/John Collison
[3][4] it seems incredibly rare to find a successful investor/CEO/founder who
_doesn't_ read.

Yet for some reason almost no one (especially not my friends in their early
20s!) reads. I'd like to understand why, if anyone has any ideas? I think the
obvious argument is social media and shortening attention spans, but it's
probably more nuanced than that.

[0] Warren Buffett apparently spends 80% of his day reading [1] "This makes
buying books a stupidly high ROI, assuming you read and get value out of
them." from
[https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/investing...](https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/investing-
for-geeks) [2] Bill Gates reads a book a week, from
[http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-favorite-
books-201...](http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-favorite-
books-2015-10)
[3][http://www.johncollison.ie/2013reading.html](http://www.johncollison.ie/2013reading.html)
[4][https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf](https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf)

By the way, I'm working on a tool that makes it easier to keep track of what
you're reading and discover who's read what. I'd love to chat with any active
readers on HN and hear about your reading pain points (I'm at
me@tristanhomsi.com ).

~~~
pnathan
I read a good deal more than my peer group; my current reading queue is more
measured in feet at this pages, and I _expect to get through it_.

I'm radically uninterested in 'social' or 'web' as it pertains to reading. A
command line tool that interacts with org-mode to take notes and serve as a
memex UI would be useful to manage sourcing and linkage of ideas.

~~~
tristanho
I agree with your point on 'social' (although perhaps not 'web' ha), GoodReads
seems to have the social end of reading pretty well fleshed out.

What's not really solved right now, imo, is the organization of what you're
reading and what to read next. Goodreads does a pretty awful job of this. A
command line tool is definitely interesting! Although you wouldn't be able to
access your "reading list" from a phone/anywhere. I find a lot of the time
while on the go someone tells me about a book and I want to save it for later
immediately.

~~~
pnathan
there are hacks to get around that sort of thing. :-) email-self, etc.

------
jacobjzhang
The part about self help books is absolutely true-- I find much more useful
"advice" and guidance from narrative nonfiction (e.g. memoirs, biographies,
etc.) and great fiction than I ever did with conventional "motivation" books.

~~~
blahi
Self-help books is philosophy for the feeble minded.

~~~
footpath
There is a quote from one of Roger Ebert's movie reviews:

"No one with a feeling for literature and poetry can read the typical best-
selling business or self-help book with a straight face, because their six
rules or nine plans or 12 formulas are so manifestly idiotic, and couched in
prose of such insulting simplicity."

~~~
sanderjd
I always try to find good business books, but can rarely stomach them. I'm
planning "The Snowball"[0] as my next try, but any recommendations for
business books that are not "manifestly idiotic" would be welcome!

~~~
freddyc
That's obviously a massively wide field - any particular business topic that
you're interested in? Given we're on HN, the VC world is often of interest - I
can recommend Brad Feld's 'Venture Deals' if you want to get an easy to digest
"anatomy of a venture deal" book. If you want something more geeky on the
finance side, you'd be hard-pressed to overlook the Allen & Brealey bible
'Principles of Corporate Finance.'

------
latenightcoding
I am usually reading 3-5 books at a time but I only read computer/math books
now a days.

I wonder if the benefits that the author and other people mention apply to
technical books. Maybe I should pick up a fiction book or finally start
reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach" again (which has been sitting on my shelf for
too long).

~~~
drvdevd
I find that reading fiction improves my overall desire and ability to read in
general - thus improving my ability to take in technical content as well.

------
westoncb
I think a lot of people end up not reading because of a certain misconception
about human knowledge acquisition. I often hear this complaint that reading
seems pointless because they'll have forgotten most of what's in the book in a
year, or whatever.

But this is just an indexing issue: when you read a book, you acquire more
from it than some list of facts you can intentionally recall afterward—that's
just one way of indexing knowledge, and not a particularly useful one.

As an example, let's say you've read a book on compilers. Is it more useful
for your brain to organize the information from the book so that when you
think of certain aspects of compilers, the information is recalled; or is it
better to have the information recalled when thinking of the book that it came
from? Recalling the info. in connection with the book itself typically offers
much less value than recalling it in connection with the book's subject
matter.

You don't know about most of the knowledge you have, though it is still active
in the sense that it participates in interpreting your experience and
determining action. Additionally, reading (without intentional memorization)
will add to this knowledge.

~~~
mfn
Thanks, that's a very insightful way to think about it. Reminded me of PG's
"How You Know"
([http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html)),
where he points out that not being able to recall information from a book
doesn't mean that the book was "useless", because the process of reading a
book weaves it into your subconscious model of the world.

Makes me feel a lot better about all the time I've spent reading books that I
can't immediately recall the details of.

------
jaytaylor
Is there a way around the paywall? I clicked "web" and then entered through
google, but it's still paywalled.

~~~
nieksand
Incognito mode plus Google search on article title does the trick.

------
ljw1001
TLDR: Get educated. Get Angry. Get Inspired. Take the time to read a great
book.

It's ironic that people are arguing that books are a waste of time - on HN.

There are certainly too many one-idea books, but there are also many
extraordinary, irreplicable works: A Pattern Language, Thinking Fast and Slow,
The Landscape of History, The Modern Firm, The Diffusion of Innovations,
Bowling Alone, The Life You Can Save, And the Band Played On, and on and on.

------
edpichler
Books changed my life, definitely. With books we have access to the brightest
minds ideas. It's the best media when you want to go deep in any subject.

I think books and travel are the things that most improve you as a person.

------
skierscott
Ironic that "the need to read" is behind a paywall

------
niix
Maybe off topic, but any advice on getting better at reading? I find myself to
have too short of an attention span and end up dropping bookings quickly.

~~~
50CNT
There's "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler[0] which is quite nice in that
it presents a systematic way to engage with the content of a book. That may or
may not help with the attention span.

[0][https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-
Touchstone/...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-
Touchstone/dp/0671212095)

------
sdporzio
"The Need to Read"... but you can't read it unless you pay us.

------
kylec
"To Read the Full Story, Subscribe or Sign In"

~~~
edpichler
Try this
[https://www.google.no/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.no/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwidy5aEn8fQAhVMkSwKHc1_BFEQqQIIHDAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe-
need-to-read-1480083086&usg=AFQjCNHz-FOxI7BU4lqyMfmP6Ioeu8M8Mw)

------
gist
Sorry but to me this sounds like "Suits are back!" [1]

Essentially by reading the same book the grandma and grandson had something to
talk about. Obviously. Books aren't essential for this and there are any
number of things that could have created the same effect. (She could take up
playing and understanding, say, video games as only one example.). [2]

[1]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

[2] I talk with my daughters about "The Bachelor" which I watch with my wife.

~~~
hackuser
Are you really saying that the only value to reading is to have something in
common to socialize about?

------
malloreon
While I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, I suspect and sincerely hope
this is a plea to the future president to take time away from consulting his
big, best brain that knows much more than generals and has the best ideas to
read things and educate himself for the good of the world.

Unfortunately for the WSJ and the rest of the world he'll never read it.

