Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Ask HN: Are books worth it?
553 points by miguelrochefort on Jan 4, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 391 comments
I have read less than 50 books in my life and probably less than 5 books in the past 10 years.

Growing up with the Internet, I always assumed that everything could be found for free online.

I spend most of my day reading online articles/conversations, watching videos, and listening to podcasts. I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list on GoodReads, but almost never bother to read any. I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations, YouTube videos, CliffsNotes, podcasts, Reddit posts/comments, blog articles, etc. I even find myself reading the comments and not reading the article most of the time. I'm fine with bullet point style summaries and don't care much about the fluff that fills most books I've read in the past.

Up until recently, I didn't think I was missing out. I thought that online content was roughly equivalent to 80% of what I'd get from reading actual books for 20% of the effort. I also thought that most books probably don't age very well and that most of the bleeding edge stuff could only be found online. But I'm starting to wonder if that's true. I'm starting to see people online mention that books are infinitely better than online content. I read that millionaires and billionaires read tons of books. I wonder if I'm missing out?

One issue for me is that books are a very big time investment. I read very slowly and I don't remember everything I read either. The last few books I read were mostly filled with fluff, anecdotes, stories, jokes, and trivialities. Even if I wanted to read books, I just don't know which ones I should start with, out of the 1000 "must-read" books in my reading list.

Are books worth it? Is it more true for some fields than others? Is it more true for older books? Isn't most of the information from books freely available online? Am I missing out?




Online content is often low-quality, highly commercial in nature and very ephemeral. Books, the real kind, when they are good can stay with you for a very long time.

A well-written story, be it fiction or non-fiction can have a long lastig impact and even an emotional connection that I have personally never experienced with anything 'online'.

If you don't read books, you are missing out. Even only 1 or 2 books a year is a world of difference, even if those books aren't the best ones out there. This (as posted before) also has to do with the time investment and realtime one-to-one (you and the book) time.

If you are having a hard time getting started, or keep reading a book to the finish, start with something light and perhaps... generic. Like a Dan Brown book. (and I know opinions vary wildly) Even a smaller book that might be more targeted as a children's book such as Neil Gaiman's 'Ocean at the end of the lane' are perfectly fine to get something going. Not everything will engage you, but making it easier for yourself to get started and enjoy some reading time is all it takes to enrich yourself. (which is perhaps not the best wording... but I'm no writer)


+1 all the way. Online content is optimized not for quality but rather for clicks and interaction. As someone who grew up during the 90s the hope was that better quality would lead to more clicks. Clearly that’s not the case.

As a technical author myself, I can speak to the effort required to create a book versus a blog post. A book requires you to think holistically about a topic- building a comprehensive outline of what you intend to cover. Then you have to write. A lot. If you’re a good writer (for example take w. Richard Stevens) your text will include not just the information you wish to convey but context around that topic which is paramount to a deeper understanding of the topic.

Finally you go through a vetting process with other people in the industry. You’re challenged on your assertions, they help you correct errors, etc. Here the Wikipedia model may actually be superior as you are not limited in time or selection of experts for the tech editing phase.

In contrast, blog posts or tweets are optimized for speed and engagement. Superficial yet sensational topics are emphasized, context is lost due to lack of time and space to write, and the quality of the writing is highly variable.

Books are excellent and in fact I wrote my first tech book expressly because I found no good online resources for what I needed to know. I highly encourage people to read. It provides an excellent counterbalance to blogs and tweets.


Regarding the technical writing, that is indeed one of the very best examples when conveying an idea with a mindset or process on how that came to be (to varying degrees). It's not just a summary of facts or a list of tasks, but when well written it contains the core, the context, and how the core out of that context came to be. If the reader then reads it, they will not only learn the subject, but often also how that information was obtained in the first place and get a sense as to how the information was optimised for the subject, what was dismissed (and why) and often gives you a transfer of thought that allows you to continue to build on that instead of having to do the same exact learning process over again to get (and this is a lucky pun) on the same page.

Conveying an idea is hard enough as it is with the languages we have, but writing it down and having to think ahead of time what the reader might think, might already know, and might want to do afterwards, or ponder about upon finishing the work, that is a very underestimated specialism. It enables not only knowledge transfer but practically brings the level of understanding of the reader(s) to a new minimum level (being a higher level than before but not everyone might get the same out of it).

I work with a group of people in tech with varying backgrounds, ages and plans for the future, but when we need to make sure everyone has at least some equal foundation to start off from, we have at least one technical writeup (some chapters in a book, or a series of well written articles) combined with exercises to make sure that that base layer is there. You cannot really do that effectively if you were to try that with... tweets. Or just videos. Or a simple workshop. Getting somewhere still requires real work and real (time/attention) investment. Well written and researched information is at the center of this.

Every now and then I read a technical book on a subject I am not familiar with or never had a real-life purpose for. For example, a lot of projects never had to use a custom data format with custom parsers, or a new domain-specific language. Yet reading a well written book on GNU Bison can be fantastic. (i.e. the Flex & Bison one from O'Reilly) Even if you end up never writing a .y file or having a need for a custom syntax parsing system. Strangely enough, while the subject is different, and the goal is different, it can be just as entertaining or maybe even enriching as reading The Gargoyle (by Andrew Davidson) 15 years ago. No relation in content or context except that both are books.


Stevens's books are timeless. Yeah, they're labelled as "Unix", but they're really more about Posix to the most extent. Still very relevant today.

My own copies are +20 years old, but useful enough that they have the least dust on my bookshelf (and I predominantly work on Windows).


I would like to add something: Some books are written to get sold too. Some books in self-help and business fall into this category, most of them lose money, but a few make it out. Sometimes publishers publish trash when they know it, just because it's a book doesn't mean it's a good one.


A few years ago I realized something: I am extremely skeptical of watching and buying into a random documentary but almost unquestioningly am willing to pick up a book.

There are millions of published books out there and a lot of them are junk.


Almost all books are written to be sold. Especially the ones that are for sale. Regarding books as somehow less commercial is an odd critique.

Also, what's wrong with being commercial? We all have to work for a living, right? Just because something is sold doesn't mean it's making the world a worse place.


> Online content is often low-quality, highly commercial in nature and very ephemeral.

One question I ask myself when consuming online content is "would I pay any money for this". Generally the answer is no, the quality isn't there where I'd pay even a small amount of money. If I ask that same question with some high quality books the answer is that I would pay for it.

I'm not taking a stand on if people should pay for content or not, but it's a useful rule of thumb for me. If the quality of content is so low that I'd never pay for it, I try to cut that content out and replace it with higher quality content (even if that means I actually do pay for it).


I like this. This is a great way of looking at low-effort online (or offline) drivel. Thanks for that.


Plenty of great content can be found online. The Martian: rebuffed by literary agents when trying to get prior books published, Weir decided to put the book online in serial format one chapter at a time for free at his website. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel)

Honestly, I have read hundreds of books, but my personal favorites are all online or started that way. Freedom means a lot of junk, but also stores that are truly different.


I second your notion. I read The Martian on the website while it was being published there. (Oh hey, the website is still alive even though the story is gone - http://www.galactanet.com/writing.html)

Any recommendations?


> Online content is often low-quality, highly commercial in nature and very ephemeral. Books, the real kind, when they are good can stay with you for a very long time.

You're comparing bad online content with good books. There are good and bad versions of each.

Some of the most helpful, actionable content I've read in my life has been online.

The benefit of online content is that it can be dynamic, interactive and updated. There are downsides too of course.


There are short, easy to read non-fiction books too. It's easy to get through What We Know about Climate Change or Particle Physics, A Very Short Introduction in an evening.


I found Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces" an interesting read in this vein.


+1 Books are good.

Too much time spent attempting to min/max everything in life around here. Read a book every once in awhile.


To elaborate on what @oneplane said, and in response to OP:

> I spend most of my day reading online articles/conversations, watching videos, and listening to podcasts [...] I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations, YouTube videos, CliffsNotes, podcasts, Reddit posts/comments, blog articles, etc. I even find myself reading the comments and not reading the article most of the time. I'm fine with bullet point style summaries and don't care much about the fluff that fills most books I've read in the past.

Unless you find a really good community, most online discussions are largely banal. It is possible to occasionally find good discussions about fairly concrete topics (technical, or one-step away from technical), but for everything else, it is largely a crapshoot.

The quality distribution of content is such a sharp power law that it might be enough to read a couple of dozen good books in one's life to get that value -- but read them thoroughly and actively reflect on the message, rather than rifling through them for "collecting information". Really good ideas (deep truths) and really good communication tend to stay good for a long time (decades... centuries... millenia). The longer they've lasted the more likely they are to have true lasting value (otherwise why would anyone have bothered passing them down generations!? Check out the "Lindy effect"). Most new books haven't yet had the chance to get called out on -- assuming they are even interesting enough for that. I would rather spend more time listening to and thinking deeply about those messages from people who have thought as/more deeply about the topic.

Since it takes very low-effort to post on the internet (relative to the effort to understand a subject), and it takes an order-of-magnitude more effort to cut through bullshit than to create it, online discussions will typically be dominated by bullshit (unless the community has exceptionally good regulating mechanisms). Since (most) people today are conditioned to be driven by convenience and novelty (rather than quality), forums are not particularly good even for curation -- I would rather trust specific individuals.

For that reason, and the ubiquitous "sales culture" that has come about, I find contemporary discussions (including most contemporary books) to largely be undigested opinions spewed by people who have not thought deeply enough -- it's the Red Queen effect with people mostly trying to sell their messages (optimised for "engagement") better rather than actually improving the quality of their thinking. And advertizing is a very poor proxy for quality (irrespective of what market economists might try to argue).

Any reference to "content" or "engagement" in the contemporary sense---the very notion that one can generalize across all ideas/messages, without thoughtful discrimination---makes me want to puke.

----

For 90% of the gain with 10% of the effort, how to find 2-5 good books to read each year? Here's the strategy which has worked for me so far:

1. Find a few authors (on the internet, or otherwise) whose thinking I admire/respect, and who I find to be speaking deeper truths than others.

2. Look at what they list as their most influential books; go read those books.

Those books typically turn out to be faaaaar better than generic online "content". Digesting ideas from reading is much like a muscle to be built by exercise, to it gets easier after the first few books.


You are comparing average (or worse) internet content to the best books out there. That's basically a straw man argument. The question "Are any books worth it?" is an obvious "yes" and not worth discussion.

I submit that you can find good blogs, podcasts, etc., and find out what their creators are inspired by and consume that content.

I also contend that the whole thing is a false dichotomy. There's no particular reason to just read books or just listen to podcasts. Do both, obviously. Sort by more interesting criteria than the delivery medium.


Can you suggest some books


What do you want, fiction? Non fiction, self help. Entertaining or thought providing or challenging?

Your question is insanely broad. Also what is the longest single work you have read? Many of the best reads take forever to get going. Also they are insanly long and thus intimidating


Sometimes you can combine an answer to such a question by getting someone to read a relatively compact one like "The Physics of Star Trek". That won't work for people that don't like technology or science, but there are similar examples on other subjects. Works well for people who haven't started asking detailed questions yet, but may expect a fitting answer anyway.

If after starting or even finishing such a book and they like it, it gets a lot easier to recommend more specifically after that. If they don't like it, it either means the book needs to be less complex, or more single-topic and perhaps even non-fiction to remove more unknown elements.


The moon is a harsh mistress


Recursion by Blake Crouch! Biggest mindf* of the 2010's, hands down.


_12 Rules for Life_ by Jordan Peterson is quite eye opening, he has an insightful view on many things.


Or alternatively: https://medium.com/@magicsebi/12-books-you-should-read-inste...


Interesting that The Second Sex is included in this list, given that its author believed that women are generally too stupid to choose what's best for them in life.

> No woman should be authorized to stay home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.

— Simone de Beauvoir


You left out the next sentence, so in context it reads “ ... because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.“

> “ ... women are generally too stupid to choose what’s best for them in life.”

Those are your words, not Simone de Beauvoirs.

I haven’t read “The Second Sex” yet but I have read “The Ethics of Ambiguity” by her.

I would bet a dollar though that Beauvoir considers stupidity an individual human trait generously distributed across all genders.

Here are some other quotes from The Second Sex.

"Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it."

"To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles – desire, possession, love, dream, adventure – worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us – giving, conquering, uniting – will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form."


I know those are my words, but this is the implicit message I interpret from hers. One must think rather lowly of others (and/or extremely highly of oneself and/or one’s ideology) to claim to know what’s best for those others.


Yes.

I have always loved books. I read about 30-40 a year, mostly fiction with a few non-fiction thrown in.

Novels are the closest thing I know to a form of magic. A good author can completely encode an entire world full of people on 300 pages of black and white text. And when they do it well, it literally never expires. I read mostly books from the last 50 years but I think the best example of a book as magic is Don Quixote. It was published in 1605. You can pick it up today and relate to the characters, enjoy the plot, and laugh at their jokes. Most other forms of popular media go stale in a year or maybe a decade.

You will also find that reading great writers improves your ability to think and speak. The true masters, someone like John Steinbeck or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, construct sentences so beautifully that they can stop up in your tracks. After reading enough some of this will rub off on you and you'll be shocked at small bursts of eloquence in your thoughts and speech.

So I strongly advise everyone to read at least a few good novels a year. You won't regret it.

As for non-fiction I think the need is a little less obvious. Many times after reading a 400 page book I think "I'd probably have preferred a 30-page article on the subject". However that's not always true and many NF authors earn their word count. But I can totally see the argument for the internet as replacement for NF.


Here is one of R.A. Lafferty's short stories (many of his works are available online, a handful are in print in the UK), http://ralafferty.com/2017/05/22/through-other-eyes/

"The Cerebral Scanner, newly completed by Charles Cogsworth, was not an intricate machine. It was a small but ingenious amplifying device, or battery of amplifiers, designed for the synchronous—perhaps “sympathetic” would be a better word—coupling of two very intricate machines: two human brains. It was an amplifier only. A subliminal coupling, or the possibility of it, was already assumed by the inventor. Less than a score of key aspects needed emphasizing for the whole thing to come to life ... It had been a long-held opinion of Cogsworth that, by the proper amplification of a near score of these impulses in one brain, a transmission could be effected to another so completely that one man might for an instant see with the eyes of another—also see inwardly with that man’s eyes, have the same imaginings and daydreams, perceive the same universe as the other perceived. And it would not be the same universe as the seeking man knew ... This idea of his—to enter into the mind of another, to peer from behind another’s eyes into a world that could not be the same—this idea had been with him all his life. He recalled how it had first come down on him in all its strength when he was quite small.


In the middle of a complex 500 page ancestral deep dive Marquez will slip the simplest sentences that make me pause. It's not even the beginning of a chapter -- it's just something he tossed in without much thought to continue the magic. brb going to go check out a book.


+1 for Steinbeck being a “true master”. East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath essential.


I never understood the fascination of many Americans (I'm British) with Steinbeck. For me, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and even McCarthy and Melville are completely outclassing him.

One American friend of mine once mentioned that Steinbeck is obligatory reading in many American schools but few read Faulkner. Maybe that has something to do with his popularity.


I've only read Hemingway, and no doubt to my taste that Steinbeck is a much better writer (despite Hemingway's reputation).

One thing I love about Steinbeck is that he is a true artist in the level of detail and research he puts into his writing. There is so much grounded substance in there, so much depth, hard work, and yet he doesn't show off, doesn't throw it in your face. A huge amount of wisdom can be found in East of Eden, more than any other book I've read.


We were assigned Faulkner in high school (in Ohio). I just wish it hadn't been As I Lay Dying.


Faulkner is significantly more difficult.


> "A good author can completely encode an entire world full of people on 300 pages of black and white text. And when they do it well, it literally never expires. "

that is quite similar to how I view it also.

And good authors are able to describe so well human behavior, that it will make it worth the read.


Thanks for this. I feel somewhat compelled to start reading again.


I've always wondered how non-spanish or even non latin american people can enjoy García Márquez. His books display great usage of the language and are full of historic references. I personally enjoyed his work after having read a lot of other books (expanding my vocabulary) and only after learning colombian history and not before

PD: Before becoming a nobel laureate writer, he worked as a journalist for a newspaper. In my university we studied one of his articles in depth, as they were beautifully written.


I find the writing beautiful even in translation. It always makes me wish I could read the original language. It does make me feel like I'm missing a lot of things, but even with those things missing I find that it's better than most other things I read.

I've had a very similar feeling when reading Russian authors like Gogol, Pushkin, and Dostoevsky.


Spanish-language novels translated to English is reliably my favorite category of books. I think with a good translator the beauty of the language carries through.

(I speak some Spanish but not enough to read a whole book)


My latin in-laws shake their heads in pity because I can't 'get' García Márquez, even reading in Spanish.


How do you decide which books to read?


I'm not OP, but here's what I do.

I keep a list of books I want to read on Goodreads. When a friend mentions a book they liked, I add it on the mobile app. When someone mentions something here or on Reddit, I do the same. I keep adding books without any commitment to actually reading them, and then I review the list whenever I need another book.

I use a couple of browser extensions that tell me what's available at my library on Goodreads:

- Available Reads - checks which books are available as eBooks or Audiobooks on OverDrive (online service through the library) - Library Extension - checks specific books if they're available at a set of libraries (physical books or eBooks/audiobooks)

I like the first because it creates a sortable list on my "to read" shelf, whereas the second is useful if I'm looking at a specific book.


One particular source for me has been the reading lists of great writers and thinkers (Eg: Tolstoy[0], Gandhi[1] and many more kept extensive reading lists). Generally I think it is a good idea to delve into classics because time is a good judge.

[0] https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/30/leo-tolstoy-reading...

[1] http://www.gandhi-manibhavan.org/eduresources/bks_read_by_g....


When I was a kid I was an obsessive reader, and a teacher basically forbid me from reading anything not from the Classic section of the high school library. Before elementary ended, I'd finished reading all the books they had in their Classics. (Understanding them at that age is a whole separate issue, BTW.) But my point being, the Classics are considered "a classic" for very serious reasons, and unless you really cannot get into a writer's voice after effort, each and every "Classic" is worth reading in a major way. I suggest starting with the Nobel Literature winners.


It depends on my goals.If I just want to learn something,I do a little bit research on the subject and what could be good books on it and tgen head to Amazon or local book store for it. If haven't got a concrete goal and just want to explore some random topics,I again hit Amazon and browse random categories,read some literature reviews by critics in newspapers and etc. Also,reading feeds reading. For instance,I was reading some comments on Financial Times and saw someone making a fairly reasonable argument about queuing theory.Not being familiar with it,I googled it, found some very interesting courses and books. Will do a bit of exploration of this topic in near future.


I'd be curious to hear an answer for this as well. My goal this year is to just read something every day. No minimum amount of time, no specific books, just to read consistently.

My current approach is to keep a list of books that others recommend both online (hn, reddit, etc) and in person, and choose a book off the list as I finish each one based on what I'm currently interested in reading.


That's a question of a lifetime because as you change, mature, books "change" as well every time you read them. With that said, many people approach this by choosing the author(s) first or the historical period, and then drilling down to specific titles. Parent mentioned some authors that were relevant to him/her. Don Quixote (book title) is a great book and it had a special meaning to me when I read it for the first time. It was when I was learning Spanish and consulting in Latin America. Quixote is well regarded as a literature masterpiece for the Spanish language and, to me, as a learner, it was like playing the piano while listening to Beethoven as a reference. Well, this was my own experience. You can choose authors/books to build your own experience around them, which I'm sure you will never forget.


I don't really have a process. About half the books I read I get just from browsing a book store. I love stores that have little notes from the employees recommending certain books. The others I just hear about from friends or online.

Once I've read a book by an author and liked it I'll normally try 1-2 more. So that's a main discovery path for me. However I try not to read the same author back-to-back as I like to have variety.

I think the key is don't keep a list, just buy the book. In my house I have a stack of 5-10 'queued' books at any time so when I finish one I can immediately start another.


Got quite a few from here: http://worrydream.com/#!/Links

It's the book list from the guy who brought you "Inventing on Principal".


There goodreads website for you to help. And for me its not easy i often start and stop reading books that i find eventually bad or not interesting. One good approach i think is reading old books which have massive amounts of reviews. I know if you think that tech books get outdated you will be surprised that much of the information is very relevant


Awards are a great place to start. National Book Awards, Man Booker Prize, Pulitzer, etc.


Yeah the Man Booker in particular tends to be a good source to find my favorite novels.


Don Quixote is the funniest book I've read in my entire life.


> Novels are the closest thing I know to a form of magic.

Simply; this.


> I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list

“An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its ‘self-help’ section: ‘For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.’”

— Roger Ebert (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/larger-than-life-1996)


The people in the self-help section need something else. Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc.

It's a little like, "Have you tried not having a broken leg?"

Honestly, you're lucky if the only personal problems you have can be solved by philosophy, literature, history and science.

(I had crippling depression for many years and was cured in a single session of hypnotherapy by a guy who publishes "self-help" books, so, while YMMV, I'm a lil defensive. I'm sure he meant well.)


>The people in the self-help section need something else. Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc.

Actually it's the inverse. A healthy dose of philosophy, literature, history and science are what people suffering from "depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency" can use to liberate themselves, understand their situation, and get above it.

The rest (99% of the self help shelves) is snake oil sold by marketeers to the gullible...


Hardly. High culture takes a level of attention that someone who is struggling in life hardly will be able to attain. Moreover, philosophy is concerned with truth, and truth can sometimes be brutal. It would be almost criminal to recommend reading Nietzsche for someone who lost their job, got cheated and divorced and has some serious disease.


Well obviously you wouldn't do Nietzche (though I think you probably could). Meditations is probably the book to read in those cases.


Look I'm not shitting on high culture.

And yes, there's a lot of snake oil out there. (Personally I hate the medallions that are supposed to protect against stray EM! And don't get me started on audiophiles.)

> The rest (99% of the self help shelves) is snake oil sold by marketeers to the gullible...

You haven't read "99% of the self help shelves" have you?


>You haven't read "99% of the self help shelves" have you?

No, but I've fully read over 30 over the years, and skimmed over 100s.

Technically speaking, you don't need to "read 99%" you just need to read a decent number, and assume a normal distribution of quality. In fact if you find out that the most celebrated/succesful are already crap, this makes it even easier.

And unlike literature, science, or deep non-fiction, actually skimming self-help books to distill the 5 solid paragraphs that they've turned into a 200+ page book is the best way of reading it. And for most books, even those 5 paragraphs are mostly platitudes.


Cheers! Well met.

Here's the thing: those cheesy books of fluffy platitudes help people.

Take Berg's "The Secret". Its exactly the kind of book you're talking about IMO: the "secret" is literally one sentence just sixteen words long. And yet thousands (millions?) of people got something from it.

Who are we to say that's so wrong?

Frankly, it's weird to me that the "self-help" genre seems to attract opprobrium.

- - - -

Did you get anything out of any of those books you read? Were any of them any good? I'm just curious.


> cured in a single session of hypnotherapy by a guy

If you were cured by attending a hypnotherapy session by the guy who wrote the book rather than by reading the book I don't see how it supports your assertion (or what I think is your assertion: that self help books at least sometimes are better than the philosophy, etc., books). I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong, just that it doesn't follow.


Ah, the missing piece is that this guy only publishes self-help books. If you omit them from your search for knowledge you might miss it entirely. (E.g. the wikipedia entry for this school of psychology is all about how it's a pseudoscience, etc.)


Jungian, by chance?

Much of psychology (at least in the non-behaviorist arena) and self-help deal with ideas that are really grounded in philosophy proper. Philosophy is the original psychology and the original self-help.

Philosophy is no luxury. It saves lives. It's a deep failure of culture that it isn't a core area of primary and secondary curriculum.


> Jungian, by chance?

Nah, Neurolinguistic Programming. The "guy" is Dr. Bandler.

> Much of psychology (at least in the non-behaviorist arena) and self-help deal with ideas that are really grounded in philosophy proper. Philosophy is the original psychology and the original self-help.

FWIW the origins of NLP are grounded in Chomsky's Transformational Grammar. That's not philosophy, of course, but it's something. (Computer language hierarchy stems from the same linguistic modeling.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy

> Philosophy is no luxury. It saves lives. It's a deep failure of culture that it isn't a core area of primary and secondary curriculum.

Oh I agree wholeheartedly!

I meant it's a luxury only in the sense that "Even God hesitates to offer anything but bread to the starving man."

Even then I don't deny that many a book of philosophy has seen more than one person safely through their long dark tea-time of the soul.


There’s a lot of science-based books in the self help section on things like:

- Scientifically tested methods for behavior change (quitting smoking, alcohol/drug use, changing your diet, etc)

- Information and guidance for medically recognized conditions (major depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, etc)

- Books on interpersonal skills in various contexts (relationships, work, etc). And ones better and more factually-based than “Power Laws”, etc.

- Books meant as support or guides for working through various forms of past trauma or abuse, which have been written by trained professionals with clinical experience (ie psychologists with Phds).

Obviously the quality of the material varies and there is a lot of suspect work. Most is the good books also make clear that they do not replace working with a qualified professional. But everything requires judgement and context in life, not just the self-help section.

And I too am a fan of philosophy.


> The people in the self-help section need something else

The people in the self-help section don't know what they need or they wouldn't be looking for someone to tell them what they need.

> Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc.

Excluding paid testimonials, one can find at least as many anecdotes of people with those problems saying they were resolved by their own consumption of works in those sections (particularly philosophy and literature) as self-help works, and a lot more who resolved their issues with direct support by someone relying mostly on science works.


> The people in the self-help section don't know what they need or they wouldn't be looking for someone to tell them what they need.

With respect, how do you know? Are you a priest or psychologist or psychic?

> one can find at least as many anecdotes of ... and a lot more who ...

I'm dubious but let's grant it for the sake of discussion.

So what? I mean that's terrific if reading Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" straightens one out or whatever but that doesn't invalidate the benefits some other person gets from, say, "The Secret", does it?


> With respect, how do you know?

Basic logic: if you know what you need, you don't look for someone to tell you what you need.

> Are you a priest or psychologist or psychic?

Would the answer to that question have any relevance to anything no matter what it was?

> So what?

I agree that that's generally the appropriate response to (especially unverifiable) anecdotes offered as evidence but...that's kind of the point, given the anecdote I was responding to.


> Basic logic: if you know what you need, you don't look for someone to tell you what you need.

What if you know you need someone to tell you what you need?

> Would the answer to that question have any relevance to anything no matter what it was?

It might give some background as to why you make sweeping statements about an unbounded class like "people in the self-help sections". I mean, I did it, but it was a rhetorical flourish. If you challenged me on it I would give ground.

I think neither of us knows what ALL the people in ALL the self-help sections of ALL the world need, do we?

> I agree that that's generally the appropriate response to (especially unverifiable) anecdotes offered as evidence but...that's kind of the point, given the anecdote I was responding to.

What's the point? Are we trolling each other here or what?

I say these cheesy self-help books help some people. You say philosophy and literature have also helped some people. I agree with you.

Is there anything more to say? I've been beating this horse for three days now, I think it's dead, and anyway my arms are tired.


>Honestly, you're lucky if the only personal problems you have can be solved by philosophy, literature, history and science.

most problems in your life can't be solved by reading a book, period. Self-help or otherwise. The first lie of self-help books is that they're actually 'helping' you in any meaningful sense of the word.

Digging yourself out of bad situations takes time and there is very little magic involved, and sometimes it's not possible at all. What philosophy or literature or history or science can however provide for anyone, is to understand the world a little bit better, which even if it doesn't solve your personal problems still gives you some perspective and solace.

If you're reading philosophy or literature, or just pulpy fiction at least you're reading for reading itself instead of just buying into some racket of "i'll spend ten minutes of reading self-help books and then I'll have 20% more energy and make a thousand dollars!"

And not to doubt your personal story but actual clinical depression is typically not solved by one off hypnotherapy sessions with self-help gurus.


> most problems in your life can't be solved by reading a book, period.

How do you know? Not to be rude but why should I trust you more than some author of a "self-help" book?

I mean, a religious person might tell you that you can solve all your problems reading Scripture.

Heck, I openly maintain that most people could solve most of their problems by reading (and applying) the "Core Transformation Process" book.

Do you mind if I ask what your own personal experiences are that have led you to form your opinion?

> And not to doubt your personal story

Thank you! :-)

> but actual clinical depression is typically not solved by one off hypnotherapy sessions with self-help gurus.

Oh I know! (This wasn't the first thing I tried. I was miserable and desperate enough to shell out ~$4000 to attend a week-long seminar in hope of meeting this guy and getting help. At one point I volunteered for a demonstration on stage, ten minutes later (subjectively it was ten seconds) I was cured. I've written about it on HN a little, if you're interested you can search my comments. A few years later there was a relapse. It lasted three days and then I went back to normal. Those three days are the single most frightening thing that has ever happened to me. Only time in my life I've ever contemplated suicide. Thank God, after the third day I woke up normal again.)

My basic point is that, whatever this guy is doing, that's what we should be paying attention to. Now, you might say it's unfortunate that the ways he's chosen to bring the information to people is unscientific, and people do say that and worse, but it would be foolish IMO to throw that baby out with the bathwater of self-help.


>How do you know? Not to be rude but why should I trust you more than some author of a "self-help" book?

For one, because he doesn't try to sell you anything.

Second, you don't get to "know" because you are hand-fed some hard proofs or figures.

You either know it already (and agree) or can see the point the parent is making, correlate it with your experiences and observations, and recognise it's true -- or, of course, you don't (and e.g. you have a different experience).


> For one, because he doesn't try to sell you anything.

Publishers of philosophy, literature, history and science books are also trying to make a buck, eh?

> Second, you don't get to "know" because you are hand-fed some hard proofs or figures.

I don't understand this sentence.

> You either know it already (and agree) or can see the point the parent is making, correlate it with your experiences and observations, and recognise it's true -- or, of course, you don't (and e.g. you have a different experience).

Right, and it seems to me that the way forward is to share our experiences in good faith to try to find the mutually true union of our worldviews, eh?

If I understood GP's experiences better I might be better able to understand where a statement that looks to me to be so bizarre ("most problems in your life can't be solved by reading a book, period. Self-help or otherwise.") might make sense. I mean, think about it: books are where we store our knowledge, eh? Is GP including textbooks?

FFS, If you can't solve your problems by reading books we should just burn the libraries?


>Publishers of philosophy, literature, history and science books are also trying to make a buck, eh?

The parent however, we can presume, is neither of those things. And even if they were, they don't suggest you buy any particular work they sell in their comment, so the point still stands.

>I don't understand this sentence.

You asked the parent "How do you know?". This to be implies "where is your hard proof" - so I read it that way.

So, my point is, in this, and other cases, one does not "know" because they have some hard irrefutable hard proofs or statistics.

What would those be? Some official study cited as saying "94.2% of self-help books are inaccurate and bogus"? There can't be such a thing.

So, there's no point in asking how the parent knows, if by that you mean what's their objective, measurable basis of knowing that.

It's one of the many cases where people can only think and decide for themselves whether what the other says is valid, matches their own observations, makes sense, has some hidden intention/profit motive behind it or not, and so on.

>Right, and it seems to me that the way forward is to share our experiences in good faith to try to find the mutually true union of our worldviews, eh?

Yes.

>FFS, If you can't solve your problems by reading books we should just burn the libraries?

I don't think anybody said that we can't solve problems by reading books. E.g. we can certainly solve math problems, or a medical student learn how to fix diseases through books.

What's said is that self-helf books (and we could qualify it by saying most self-helf books), are mostly profit-driven, platitudes, silver-bullet formulas, that don't work, and don't solve problems for the majority of people who cling to them (which tend to accumulate such books, and run from guru to guru, and method to method over the years).

Of course there's also solid advice in some of those books. Usually of the kind that everybody knows already -- but have trouble following. Much akin the Christian "be kind" etc.


> The parent however, we can presume, is neither of those things. And even if they were, they don't suggest you buy any particular work they sell in their comment, so the point still stands.

Yeah, you're right. I went for a rhetorical rather than reasonable point there and flopped. Sorry.

> So, there's no point in asking how the parent knows, if by that you mean what's their objective, measurable basis of knowing that.

That's really all I was trying to challenge, that GP was stating their opinion as objective fact.

> I don't think anybody said that we can't solve problems by reading books.

Not to be petty but that is what GP said.

> most problems in your life can't be solved by reading a book, period. Self-help or otherwise.

Eh?

> What's said is that some self-help books are merely profit-driven, platitudes, silver-bullet formulas, that don't work, and don't solve problems for the majority of people who cling to them (which tend to accumulate such books, and run from guru to guru, and method to method over the years).

With qualifications I can agree with that. I know a few people like that, and there are definitely charlatans in the self-help field.

> Of course there's also solid advice in some of those books. Usually of the kind that everybody knows already -- but have trouble following. Much akin the Christian "be kind" etc.

Other people do get a lot of help from those kinds of books. YMMV, eh?

Cheers, well met.


Your last sentence is distasteful on so many levels. If you think a person is lying or can't be trusted to use the term "crippling depression" accurately, just say so.

To paraphrase a sibling comment, you sound like a self-help guru yourself, albeit a spiteful one. You deride others' solutions and offer up your own: hard magic-less work. Hard work is as much of a racket as easy magic.


If you read my post carefully again you'll notice that I stress that sometimes there is no solution at all. I'm not a guru of any kind, because my entire point was that some sort of messianic figure helping you with your problems does not exist and that people should not put their trust into some sort of spiritual self-help authority figure, including me.

And I'm not saying that hard work is a silver bullet because it's not a guarantee for anything, but dedicating yourself to something is good in and of itself, and doesn't rely on seminars, books, arcane knowledge or anything else. It's the opposite of a racket because there is no racketeer.

And my last sentence was not distasteful at all. Depression is generally not solved by one-off sessions with life-coaches. It might for some peculiar reason be the experience of one individual, but that is not how depression works, you're free to consult the literature or talk to a bunch of people who suffer from it.


> some sort of messianic figure helping you with your problems does not exist

FWIW, that's not what I was talking about, the guy I went to see is a hypnotherapist not a messiah.

> And my last sentence was not distasteful at all.

FWIW I wasn't offended. (I've had friends insult me to my face when bringing up personal history that is outside their worldview.)

> Depression is generally not solved by one-off sessions with life-coaches.

Right, and that is not what happened to me. The person who helped me is arguably the greatest living hypnotherapist on the planet.

Anyway, IMO you're right about the value and importance of hard work but wrong about books not being helpful.

Cheers!


>Hard work is as much of a racket as easy magic.

Really? Perhaps you need to think long and hard about what you wrote above.

We got to the moon and in 2020 style civilization, from the technology involved to the social issues and personal problems we overcame, with hard work, not with "easy magic".


[flagged]


Check out my answers to the other sibling comments.

Would you settle for quit smoking by a self-help book? ;-D

Here's something that blew me away...

My sister just quit smoking. From ten cigarettes a day to zero. We (her family and friends) are all so overjoyed. How did she do it?

https://www.allencarr.com/

She read that book. That's all. When she was done, she was no longer smoking. Within a few days her sense of smell came back and now cigs smell disgusting to her.

Go ahead and be skeptical. If it hadn't happened to my own sister I would be too.

And then get the book for the smokers you love in your life, eh? I mean, you can return it if it doesn't work for them, but if it does... My sister just got back years of her life!

I don't mean to be pushy or saleman-ish, and I'm not affiliated with Carr in the slightest. I only remembered that a book cured my sister of smoking addiction in the time it took to read it after reading your comment goto11, cheers!


I had a friend who also read that book. I don't know if he picked up smoking again but I remember him telling that the book basically hammers it into you that smoking is bad for 150 pages and that you just have to give up smoking because it's so annoying to read about how bad it is.


The core idea of the book is that you're not giving up smoking. You're just deciding not to smoke this cigarette. You can still smoke if you want to. You just don't want to because $HUGE_LIST_OF_BAD_STUFF.

I don't know if that's an evidence based approach, but some people find it useful.

My dad, who was smoking at least 40 a day (and really smoking -- down to the filter, deep inhalations, carried on when he knew it was doing him harm) read it and cut down for a week or so, but then started smoking cigars (in the same way as he smoked cigs), and then switched back to cigarettes.

I think the current evidence strongly recommended a combination of psychological work and nicotine replacement. https://cks.nice.org.uk/smoking-cessation


Isn't that most self-help books? State your core idea in the first 5 pages, then fill the next 150+ pages with restatements of the same idea in slightly different ways.


No, pick one up and notice how it comes with exercises and how there are always more than a single core idea and it's more like 4-7 concepts layered out in chapters. It's more structured than just restating.


That's more-or-less what my sister said.

Whatever works.

I mentioned this thread to her and she wanted me to add that there was no withdrawal and her behavior didn't change. When she has tried to quit previously it had significant effects on her mood. This time we (her friends and family) didn't notice she had quit until she told us! It was the best Christmas present.


It is not uncommon for people to just make a decision to stop smoking. It is indeed possible to not light a cigarette if the motivation is there. That is completely different than "trying not to have a broken leg".


> It is not uncommon for people to just make a decision to stop smoking.

I don't think that true, but even if it is, so what? That's not what happened to my sister.

The “Have you tried not having a broken leg?” line is from e.g. https://sunflowerssunshine.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/breaking... I don't know if that's the original source.


I once read a hypothesis, that all self help books work. The reason is that they make you monitor your own behavior for a while.


There's probably a self-help book about that.


Can you (or someone else) recommend me some great books about philosophy, history and science? I feel like I haven't read many books from these sections and I'd like to start doing that.

Thank you!


To get you started, I’ll recommend you one book that checks all three boxes at once: Louis Menand’s magisterial The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28202).

Enjoy :-D


Yes!

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Astrophysics For People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

bonus round:

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Shoedog by Phil Knight

The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani


I actually would encourage you to start with the Socratic Dialogues. Greek philosophy is at the root of western philosophy and so much thought in general.

They are extremely short and accessible and use plain language. The Dialogues, like any philosophy, have their flaws, but I think they do a great job of teaching a certain way or analyzing an idea.

They were actually written by Plato (Socrates left no written material behind) but are the closest we have to Socrates and Socratic thought.

I personally found a course on the fundamentals of western philosophy super fascinating. Aside from the dialogues the primary sources can be tough going so a class or a reputable-looking reader on each thinker (good used bookstores will have these, or just google and get whatever is most recent and recommended) is recommended. In rough chronological order:

- Socrates - Plato - Descartes (I don’t know much about medieval though and have skipped over it) - Spinoza - Rousseau - Kant (can be dense/boring) - Hegel

The fascinating thing is to read each thinker, absorb their conception of things, and learn what they got _wrong_. And then to read the next thinker and learn what _they_ got wrong!


These are all pseudo, pop-science books. I would recommend reading the works of actual scientists and philosophers directly, or textbooks.


This is not a contribution. Telling someone asking for enjoyable books to read to skip bestselling books by Nobel laureates to instead read textbooks, whitepapers and other raw sources makes you sound like a pretentious asshole.


Are there any particular ones you could recommend?


FiveBooks.com is a good place to find books. Here are some relevant lists:

https://fivebooks.com/category/philosophy/

https://fivebooks.com/category/mathematics-and-science/

https://fivebooks.com/category/technology/


I feel the same way about education degrees.


Books shouldn't be about absorbing "information." Think of them as intellectual obstacle courses. A good book should challenge you, either with radically new ideas or radically new viewpoints. I basically can't do serious thinking (i.e. not administrative or programming thinking but broader thinking about ideas) without reading.

On the other hand, you're not going to get this experience from "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" or whatever, and if you haven't built these muscles you probably shouldn't be starting with Gulliver's Travels or Walter Ong or some other really challenging thing.

First of all, throw out your self help books and just read Thinking Fast and Slow, which 80% of self-help books have ripped off for the past 20 years. It's more boringer (I have a PhD so I can say things like that), but it at least isn't just a bunch of cute anecdotes for an executive to amuse themselves with while there's no wifi on a plane.

Second, start building those muscles with the few people who are both challenging and accessible. George Orwell is great for this, read Homage to Catalonia and get a collection of his essays. Read a few Beckett plays, try Endgame and scratch your head at that shit. Read some Neil Postman and be like, yeah, he was right about technology.

The idea with books isn't to make yourself know more stuff, though that does happen to some extent. The idea is to improve your character and model the world better. You're increasing WIS, not INT. If you're feeling impatience when you pick up a book, if you get that feeling after three pages that you need to put it down and move on to reading 40 news sites, that's your weak-ass WIS. It basically means your brain is flabby. You're like the person at the gym who hasn't been in 4 years. Just push through, give it a week or two and you won't have that feeling.

P.S. People, stop calling things "content." "Content" is what you put the ads around. Goddamn civilizational collapse.


Thinking Fast and Slow came out in 2011. Also there is recent work showing that some of its conclusions may be flawed due to failure to replicate.

Self help books are not all bad. The early ones around cognitive behavioral therapy have been proven to help in scientific studies. I would look to ones that have scientific basis. That being said the placebo effect is very powerful.


He decided to write a self-help book because every other self-help book draws on his research. And, surprise, it became a best-seller. But yes, sorry, if he'd actually written a bestseller earlier probably fewer Malcom Gladwell knock-offs would have used the research for their bestsellers. The 20 years comment is based on the Nobel prize winning research, not the book itself.

Also, I don't really mean to knock self-help. There are a few actual winners there, especially if you're willing to engage with a book as a process. How to Win Friends and Influence People is kind of dumb and obvious, but it's simultaneously true that a huge number of people would benefit from reading it and actually practicing the advice. For the original poster's question, however, these books tend not to be far higher value than blog posts, etc., and in general I wouldn't hold them up as exemplars of how books are valuable.


Any recommendation for the early CBT books you mentioned?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(novel)


Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns.


Seconded.

There is also “The dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook”.

“Changing for Good” I highly recommend in general. It’s a very straightforward description of a model for behavior change and based on research as to how people quit smoking, both on their own and with the help of some sort of program.

https://hams.cc/ch5/


> Thinking Fast and Slow

I thought a fair amount of this book was debunked in one way or another?


Thought about mentioning this in the above rant. Yes, a lot of that book is debunked. No, that doesn't stop all self-help books from being based on it. It's also still worth reading, just don't take each individual claim as gospel and if you're going to excitedly incorporate any given claim into your model of how things work, have some other evidence for it or read some papers. (Though the papers you read will also be debunked before you can say "priming effect.")


I'm aware of the priming studies being debunked, but what else?


As far as I know, that's it.


What was debunked? As a primarily "system 1" thinker the book reasonated with me in a profound way. It explained why if I know or Intuit a solution, say in an interview it comes out of me boundlessly like lightning, where if I have to work through a solution I struggle. I have to work back wards from my intuitive answer to explain it.


Mostly the priming effects, i.e. read about old people and act slower, be in a room with money symbols and be more selfish.


I believe that the difference between sitting down and reading a book for an hour vs. browsing the internet is _exactly_ what makes books so valuable.

You're right, books are a lot of effort. However, they teach something that internet articles & videos don't, and that is delayed gratification.

In the digital age, everything is fighting for your attention and it is getting harder and harder to actually focus on anything. Clickbait titles is perhaps the most obvious manifestation, but you can see it in videos as well - many popular videos are edited in a specific way (no pauses between sentences, cut after cut after cut) that grabs your attention as often as possible.

Books let you practice tuning all that noise out and focusing on a single task for a long time, while still providing entertainment. For a knowledge worker, to be able to focus at this level is a very valuable ability!

Deep Work by Cal Newport is a non-fiction book that goes into more detail about some of these ideas concerning focus in the contemporary era.

Another great non-fiction book that really couldn't be presented in another medium is "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind is not an easy read because the ideas presented are complex and wide-reaching. It takes a lot of time to go through and digest, but it is definitely worth it. The Righteous Mind has had perhaps the most impact upon my understanding of humanity and politics out of anything I've ever read.

If you want to see what it's like to read for fun, check out the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin - this is probably the best pacing I have ever experienced in a fantasy series.

And if you think science fiction would be more your thing, try to to take a stab at reading Dune by Frank Herbert. This is a sci-fi classic that essentially codified the genre, and some of the ideas in the series are what made Star Wars the phenomenon it is today. I think you can't get better proof that books can stand the test of time than this!


> If you want to see what it's like to read for fun, check out the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin - this is probably the best pacing I have ever experienced in a fantasy series.

Another vote for Broken Earth trilogy here. Finished it last year (on Audible) and loved it.

She takes time to build a big world and yet connect you with the protagonist's very personal experience


Just want to second how great “A Righteous Mind” is. Among other things it helped make sense of the division we see in the US (and beyond actually). Really great book.

Another book related to this that blew my mind already in the introduction is “American Nations”. (Actually haven’t finished the book - the main thesis is explained in detail in the introduction, all latter chapters just go into more depth to a point I’m not as interested in.)


I am reading through The Righteous Mind myself at the moment and it is a GREAT book! The ideas are very well presented.


Can we be friends?


Sure :)

As a side-note, I think that mastering a musical instrument is a good thing to do for some of the same reasons: it teaches discipline and focus. I've found that playing the guitar is a good foil to programming because it engages a completely different part of my brain that hasn't been engaged during the working day, and it also lets the analytical part of me relax.


I say that because I'm a big fan of all your recommendations, and also think you recommended them in a way that doesn't come off as patronising or condescending. Idk what your preferred method of communication is, but if you can do Twitter, please drop me a message on Twitter @samiur1204.


Done!


We're witnessing history folks!


> I read very slowly and I don't remember everything I read either.

Unless you have dyslexia, this is a skill issue. You're just not very good at reading yet. The non-fiction that you're going to get through with this skill level probably isn't going to be that valuable.

> Is it more true for older books?

Not exactly. It's rather that we've had time to figure out which older books are worth keeping around. If people keep reading a work for two thousand years, there's probably something to it.

> Isn't most of the information from books freely available online?

Oh goodness, no, unless you've gotten past books into primary sources, in which case, yes, it's mostly online, but you need to have specialist knowledge to engage with it at all.

The good news is that, if you learn to read well, finding the right books, usually those meant for training specialists, can get you up to speed at a remarkable rate. I usually explain it as someone who is a crappy player in a professional league is going to be amazing in an amateur context.


I despise reading analog books. Just sitting down calmly and committing time to read pages and pages is not my thing. And I don't like fiction.

I had a similar mindset to you, had bookmarked tens of self improvement books for the areas in life I struggled with, also books for entrepreneurship etc. But I assumed most of what they contain would surface in online conversations etc.

I hate wasting time, so last year I gave audio books a try. I don't like doing chores or commutes not because I don't physically like doing them but because the time it takes to do them - it feels like waste. So I thought "why not listen to audio books while doing them to take the edge off?"

So I started listening to the books I wanted to read while doing the dishes etc. I think last year I've listened to more books than I have ever read in my entire life prior.

I can confidently say that books, if you choose them correctly, are worth it. The curation of content and the layers of depth built into the content (afforded to the author because of the long format of books) gives you a very different experience.

Yes, you can find bits and pieces of wisdom from them online, you'll bump into some of the stuff that is in there. But this idea clashes with your (and my) "efficiency" argument. It would take you years to bump into all the wisdom found in some important books randomly while browsing online. By just listening to them while you are otherwise wasting your time with mundane daily tasks you can be orders of magnitude more efficient with acquiring that info.


> I hate wasting time, so last year I gave audio books a try

Interesting. I have exactly the opposite reaction to audio books. I hate wasting time, and audio books don't let you skim sections that aren't of much interest (essential if you want to read a lot of non-fiction IMO), and generally take massively longer. I can read a good deal quicker than people talk. I dunno, maybe 5x speed or something?

Treating reading the printed word as a waste of time is madness.


The big time advantage audiobooks have over the printed word is that can listen while doing something visual but relatively mindless (e.g., driving, cleaning, yard work, etc.).


Honestly the more I read I find this attitude to be exactly the opposite of how I feel. When I'm trying to read a book, I need to be immersed in it. I don't want it to be a mindless distraction, because I am putting 100% of my focus into driving, or cleaning, or yard work. Driving perhaps is the one that gets me the most, I can't appreciate fiction at all while driving because I have to keep my imagination in check so I don't kill someone veering off into space. And non-fiction, well, I have never been able to digest hard topics if I'm distracted by wistful activities.


I had to stop trying to listen to a couple books last year because they were too immersive to be safe driving accompaniments. I specifically seek out mediocre books to make driving bearable (my commute would drive me insane otherwise)


Sorry I think you got me wrong. Wasting time was referring to the mindless chores /errands I need to do every day. Reading physical words from a book is something I can't physically tolerate (but it is not a waste of time). So the best of both worlds is audio books for me - In the portion of time that I believe I'm wasting (chores, commute etc.) I get to read books that I won't otherwise sit down and read. I agree that it might not be as efficient as how a habitual reader reads physical books - but that is not happening to me anyways (I don't sit down and read) - the efficiency gains for me come from the fact that I still get to "read" the books while I'm doing mindless tasks. It actually got me more motivated to run errands (since I don't see them as a time sink now) so I don't procrastinate as much.


I recently did a book club at work, reading the book Being Wrong. At one point the book shared some research that supported the notion that children largely engage in play as a method of flirting with error and mistake making. Mistakes made in play are easily forgiven and quickly learned from. Adults play progressively less because there are fewer safe areas in which we can regularly err.

Whether that line of logic is accurate or not, it did help me to realize that in my own life I have very few opportunities to test my (mis)understandings of the world around me and find where I'm wrong. I desperately hide in my safe zones.

I've recently found reading books a good way to create fresh safe zones where I can view the world from different perspectives and test my beliefs. People of all different sorts in all different cultures from nearly all time periods have written books, and often written them well enough to transport the reader into their reality. It may not be "play", but I'm greatly enjoying the diverse worlds I have recently been reading myself into.

I don't find many internet writings to have this level of depth that allows me to rethink myself as I read.


Like OP, I also read very few books in my life. I started trying recently, but more for therapeutic and experimental purposes.

Surprisingly, there idea you describe (haven't read Being Wrong, so only using your comment as a description) is something that occurred to me as a result of reading stuff online. And if that would be a totally novel idea for me, your comment would catch my attention and I would start searching for content published online to either confirm it or not (most likely academic papers)

So to me comments section is like bunch of clues, off which I would research further if it catches my attention.


Short answer: yes, you're missing. Books (usually) have more curated content, have more research and are better at keeping you focused.

Here are some good pointers on how to start/improve your reading, using a medium you're already into (podcast):

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/21/781673493/how-to-read-more-bo...

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/782946619/not-a-regular-reade...

Also, it's totally fine to not like a book: just start reading it, or skip chapters, etc. Number of books read also means nothing, just read what you want to read.

Finally, fiction/novels are also a great source of wisdom/inspiration. Don't disregard them. Some of my favorites: the Foundation Series, LOTR (of course :P), old books by Stephen King, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky.


I have noticed in the past 10 years online content has become very click-baited and regurgitated. Sites are designed to steal your attention with information coming as a secondary concern.

Books, for the most part, avoid these issues. On average they are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books!

With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence. Don't worry about that shit, worry about finding high-quality content that's worth reading.


I agree on all points. I want to expand on two.

> On average [books] are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books!

Along the same lines, the time and mental investment required to read a book, for me, produces a unique kind of immersive return. For example, I’m currently reading John Dos Passos’ USA trilogy. It is 1000+ pages of fiction about 1900-1930 America, and it takes time. But that time has given me a rich picture of what the period was like, written by a guy who lived it. Both because I’m spending time and actively thinking while reading. It’s hard for me to get the same thing from shorter-form or visual media.

> With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence. Don't worry about that shit, worry about finding high-quality content that's worth reading.

Particular around new year/year in review time, I see many people online talking about reading x books per year. But reading books is not like running miles. It’s definitely about quality over quantity.

To take the example a little further, most people probably wouldn’t brag about seeing 1000 paintings this year.

If you love to read many books then more power to you. There are certainly several people I respect that read hundreds of books annually. But for me, I think a couple of quality books per month is already a ton of good input, and I hope people don’t get caught up in “# books read” as another metric to simply pump up.


On this point,

> But for me, I think a couple of quality books per month is already a ton of good input, and I hope people don’t get caught up in “# books read” as another metric to simply pump up.

Schopenhauer puts it well:

"As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself."


> people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence

Good shout, reading isn't a competition! For me at least, it is firstly a hobby, and secondly an opportunity to build upon the ideas of those who came before you.

Because books tend to explore a topic to a high degree of depth, they cover a lot of ideas including things you might have thought about yourself. I've always found new perspectives on ideas I had before to be very refreshing.


I think books, in general, are too long. The points the author tries to make takes too many words. I think most books probably can communicate their core message in about half the number of pages. Too much fluff.


Whether or not we agree on what constitutes "fluff," I don't really disagree. A lot of fiction would be better if it were tighter and a lot of non-fiction, especially business etc. books, do have padding.

A lot of it is publishing economics. For non-fiction, most mainstream publishers are looking for 250+ pages. And that often means adding more examples, more background, more...

There can definitely be a sweet spot between a magazine article and a typical published book. But that's hard to get published through mainstream channels which still have both real (and perceived) value relative to doing it independently.

When I did a book about a year ago, I was certainly aware of hitting page counts. I don't think of it as having a lot of fluff but it's not as short as it could have been either.


I’ve also noticed that even books are much more click-baity and regurgitated now, seeing the high influx of self-help books, dodgy entrepreneurship books, and “here’s your watered down philosophy/humanities books so you have things to talk about in dinners with other people”. In overall it’s becoming harder and harder to find good books in bookstores.

My take on this is: although books have inherent advantages compared to other mediums, most of them (that you can easily find) are pretty bad, just like the Internet. You’ve got to do your own adventure finding the rare and good stuff that people usually don’t talk about.


>I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement)

>and I don't remember everything I read either.

You know that if you're trying to learn then just consuming information, by itself, is a terrible waste of time right? Doesn't matter if its book, article, or video.

Understanding, active recall, and spaced repetition do the heavy lifting when it comes to learning. Consuming the information is just step one. If that's all you do then yeah, it's going to fall out of your brain pretty much straight away. That happens for everyone.

And that's just for knowing facts. Actually putting it in to practice is a whole other thing. Are your self help books all about how to spend most of your day reading online articles/conversations, watching videos, and listening to podcasts better? Or is there something else you want to be doing with most of your day instead? If the latter, actually trying to do it would be a far better use of time.


A good book can immerse you in someone else's way of thinking, in their world. I think the time it takes to read is an essential part of that process, in the same way that watching a two-hour movie can move you more than the 20 second preview that gives it all away.

For example, I ran across this gem recently:

"In the same way as people who've been to a concert carry about with them the melody and haunting quality of pieces they've just heard, interfering with their thinking and preventing them from concentrating on anything serious, so the talk of snobs and parasites sticks in our ears long after we've heard it. And it's far from easy to eradicate these haunting notes from the memory; they stay with us, lasting on and on, coming back to us every so often."

I would never connect those two ideas. It's beautiful. The writer is Seneca, a Roman who was born around the time of Christ. He was idealistic yet street-smart, lofty though sometimes petty, and very opinionated. I enjoyed walking a mile in his sandals.


I'm a bibliophile, so, yes, of course I'm going to say they are "worth it".

Nevertheless, I'll admit, yes, most books are worthless.

However, the books that are important are so totally important that it's almost impossible to overstate how important they are.

Yet, there's no way to tell in advance which books those will turn out to be, for an individual, for a society, and for societies that come after. (A few books are thousands of years old and still relevant and important to this very day!)

Go! Search for treasure! (Cue theme of "Reading Rainbow"....)


Love this. I used to go to this giant book fair in West Bloomfield, Michigan (USA). I marveled at how many books there were that, at first glance, were horribly written. Yet, I could always find a handful of truly great books. A book can be like a magic mushroom. One dose and your outlook changes for ever.


If I could suggest one thing, I would consider nuking your 1000-long list of 'must reads', and then find one book you really like the sound of. Find some good fiction that fits into a genre you enjoy; maybe even try graphic novels if superhero-style stuff is your thing.

Then, make it a habit to read out of enjoyment and not as an info gathering exercise, or reading for the sake of reading. Take the book to bed with you and read a few pages or a chapter before you doze off; read a few pages when you've got downtime instead of browsing the internet. At the end of the day, you're just choosing to enjoy reading from a different source.

But still, nuke the epic list from orbit. You'll likely never get around to all of them due to the overwhelming size of the backlog. Your personal must-reads will return to you again, if they're important enough to you. Meanwhile, you've just reduced the scope to enjoying just a few books rather than all of them.

If you still struggle, try audiobooks or readings of public domain works.

Two personal examples:

- I don't give two hoots about Lord of The Rings. I read some of the books but it just wasn't "me", so I stopped because it wasn't really speaking to me. I saw one of the films and similarly didn't care.

- I don't care about Star Wars and haven't watched any of it. Same reason; wasn't my thing.

Popular culture would ostracise me for not enjoying these two works, but popular culture doesn't dictate what I should and shouldn't spend my time enjoying. So, do yourself the same favour and try and find what you enjoy, and take it from there.


For me, I maxed out all the Sci-Fi movies and TV shows out there and wanted more and discovered early on that Sci-Fi books are 1000 times better than whats out there in movie land. My problem is I have a hard time keeping track of where I am in all the book series I've been reading as new books sometimes take a year or more to come out depending on the authors.

Here's a couple resources I recommend...

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF - Sci-fi book subreddit

https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/sci-fi - Sci-fi books on Goodreads

https://www.scifibooklove.com - My (small) sci-fi book review site


Your book review site looks nice. Thanks for sharing.

However, the order of books in Alastair's Revelation Space series doesn't match up with I found on Goodreads

https://www.scifibooklove.com/book_series/revelation_space/ vs https://www.goodreads.com/series/56392-revelation-space

I recently started the series and went with Redemption Ark as book 2 (according to Goodreads) Hope I'm not missing too much going with the Goodreads ordering :/


Weird, the Wikipedia book order and the Goodreads order don't match...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_universe

https://www.goodreads.com/series/56392-revelation-space

When in doubt I'm heading over to the author's website...

http://www.alastairreynolds.com/novels/

His take on this is: " The reading order isn’t that critical, in my view, but it probably improves things to read REVELATION SPACE, REDEMPTION ARK and ABSOLUTION GAP in that sequence. THE PREFECT (AURORA RISING) and ELYSIUM FIRE may be read alone or jointly, but should best be read in the above order. CHASM CITY, as well as the collections DIAMOND DOGS, TURQUOISE DAYS and GALACTIC NORTH, can be read at any point."


Yup, if you like scifi/fantasy movies consider that there are at most 2 or 3 that raise to the level of a mediocre sci fi book, and even those are book adaptations.


So I'm presuming you're limiting this discussion to technical books, and not fiction, etc.

As if you're not limiting it to non-fiction, then yes you're missing out.

If you're limiting it to non-fiction, then yes. You're still missing out. Some concepts take more than a blog entry to understand fully. You might get some aspect of a concept but not all the facets.


Reading books is more than just looking at words on paper instead of a screen. At least in fiction, the process of understanding the world an author has created makes the story completely personal to you in a way that a movie never can be, because the imagined version of the settings and events is completely your own.

In this way, when a really well done book impacts you with some profound lesson about life or the human condition, it hits a million times harder because you've been living in that book's world and are emotionally invested.

The power of a good book is more than just ordinary transmission of information, it's delivering profound thoughts, emotions, and ideas packaged inside the context required to understand them.


My speed in reading as well as my endurance (amount of time I was able to read in one sitting) greatly increased when I switched to an e-reader. I found that the stress of reading small type was impacting my ability to read quickly as well as affecting how long I could read before my brain started to shutdown due to mental exhaustion.

Switching to an e-reader allowed me to increase the text to a comfortable size without increasing the size of the thing (book) I was reading. Sure, you can buy books in large print, but they are usually available for a premium, you can't always but what you want in large print, and either the books are huge or they're abridged.


The way I see it, non-fiction books are all about distillation of information. Yes most of the information from books is freely available online in some other form, but you'll have to dig for it in many places, and learn from many narrators.

The benefit of the book-length information product is that a single author went through all the possible sources and used their expertise to give a coherent story on a subject. You can think of the book as someone who read 100 blog posts for you and extracted the useful info from them.

If you have meta-learning skills like being to "orient" yourself in a new space, and you're able to judge the quality of information sources then you should be OK, and you don't need someone else to do the distillation for you.

Also the benefit of having the information all in one place reducing the need for "foraging" on the internet to find info might be worth the time saving.


As an author I am encouraged by all the great responses here. In addition to writing a book a year I read about 50. My question for OP: How do you learn anything if you are not reading books? Sure, you can learn a lot about a subject online. When I write a book I spend about 6 months reading everything I can find (including books). Then I organize what I have learned and present it (I hope) in an easy to absorb manner. A reader can learn everything I know about a subject in 4-6 hours. Want to learn about the Cold War? Read Gaddis' seminal book on it. Want to learn about WWII? Read Winston Churchill's five book series that won the Nobel prize for literature? Civil War? Shelby Foote. If history is not your thing what about biography? There are biographies of practically every founder of great tech companies. (Jobs, Gates, Musk). How about ideas? Malcolm Gladwell (Tippingpoint), Michael Lewis (Mondeyball). Or maybe break into reading with fiction. Give yourself a present of the complete Lord of the Rings. If you liked the movies be prepared to love the books. If you hated the movies, no problem, the books are far better. OR science fiction. Read all of Heinlein's books for young adults. Start with Double Star then read Have Space Suit Will Travel. A Door Into Summer speaks to any engineer. Tunnel In the Sky is the classic survival story. When you are hooked on Heinlein read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; it only takes a chapter to get used to his interesting take on what English of the future will sound like.

I hope you are encouraged by all the great reasons listed in the rest of the comments. I for one live to read!


> I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations, YouTube videos, CliffsNotes, podcasts, Reddit posts/comments, blog articles, etc

I don't think this is true. In theory, you may be able to find all the information contained in the books, but it's drowning in garbage. The benefit of books is that the information has been distilled for you. Good books distill information better than bad books.

> One issue for me is that books are a very big time investment. I read very slowly and I don't remember everything I read either.

I hardly read books any more, though I do enjoy a day of reading in the sun when it's warm. I listen to audiobooks while I'm traveling, working out, or doing housework.

> I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list on GoodReads, but almost never bother to read any.

Different folks will tell you different things, but for me, the following self-help content covered most of what I've read to date:

* Any Alan Watts lecture series - I listened to "Out of your mind" (listen to the whole thing) * The Book of Joy (Dalai Lama and Desmond TuTu) * Never split the Difference (Chris Voss) * The hard thing about hard things (Ben Horowitz)

And then read (or listen to) whatever strikes your fancy.

The concentrated focus of books makes them stick better, in my opinion, than blog posts, online commentary, etc.


You're missing out. I think it has to do with depth. A real world parallel: I recently travelled by car with no internet access with a friend for 3 days. The level and depth of the conversation was surprisingly high because we could build on each precedent layer. No interruptions meant a higher architecture, so to speak. Books can take you in places nothing else can.


Exactly. For good or bad, reading a book is essentially an act of conversation-at-a-distance with the author. Reading is very much an active activity, as opposed to, say, watching television. The TV shows you all there is to the story in pictures; almost no imagination required. A book, meanwhile, requires you and the author to work together to build up whatever structures they're trying to create in your brain. It's really fascinating from a meta/philosophical sense.

So a great book is like a great conversationalist; it can build a vibrant world of rich complexity, whether fiction or non-fiction. I would list Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid as one of these. Read that book and then imagine the author trying to present its complexities in a series of blog posts.

But a bad book is as bad as a bad conversationalist. Reading a bad fiction book will make you feel like you're watching campy soaps, or trying to listen to an incoherent storyteller; reading a bad non-fiction book will either make you wish you had just read an article on the topic, or worse, will make you feel manipulated or lied to.


I come from the academic world where the right references were (and still are) a big thing. I spent long hours on libraries when gathering information (from when I was a kid to when preparing my PhD in physics).

Today my children, when preparing some presentations for school, rely exclusively on Internet, starting with Wikipedia.

I told them that one needs to cross check sources and whatnot. To this we went together to our library to do this the right way.

What a nightmare. We lost so much time going through books and books to find the averzge size of a horse, or how Versailles was built.

All this was readily available on internet, from zillion sources. From Encyclopedia Britannica and from the blog of John Doe who thought that horses weighted 2000 ks.

So yes, for non-fiction books are not worth it. Once someone learns to be skeptical (which, by the way, the old "books are sanctuaries" approach will not teach) then Internet is the way to go.


> So yes, for non-fiction books are not worth it. Once someone learns to be skeptical (which, by the way, the old "books are sanctuaries" approach will not teach) then Internet is the way to go.

I agree. I have been reading/listening to 60+ books a year (~60% books, 40% audiobooks on Audible) for the past 3 years, and I rarely find a tech book more valuable that a collection of blog posts of authors that I already know and trust. I actually find that a good blog post with many insightful comments has much more depth of a book. A nice exception would be one of these short books by O'Reilly (https://gist.github.com/augbog/d65f6600188fece854cb341734c5f...). I always reach for them when I want a quick overview of a technology I'm not familiar with.

Many other non-fiction books - e.g. almost all self-help books - are also not worth reading, and you could summarize them in a few pages.

A few tips:

- try Audible if you don't find the time to sit and read a book. I always listen to an audiobook when I go for a walk or do some light exercise.

- read book summaries with something like Blinkist (https://www.blinkist.com) before deciding to read a book.

- don't feel guilty leaving a book unfinished. If it sucks, or if it starts repeating itself, stop reading it.

- in the case of a non-fiction book, always take notes.


Concerning fiction only: I see books as a way to experience things that I cannot experience in my (rather repetitive) "real" life otherwise.

I don't necessarily mean this in terms of the fantastical but also in terms of more pedestrian books. I still get to connect with characters (people) in ways I wouldn't in real life, experience emotions that terminals aren't very good at evoking, and have thoughts that wouldn't have otherwise occurred to me.

I don't really remember what I read very well. I can't quote some famous passage and after a few months my memory of the book is reduced to basically a blur. Since HN is ever pragmatic, one has to ask what exactly I'm walking away with in the end. I think reading (fiction) gradually imparts you with a wider soundstage through which to view (hear) life and is generally enriching in that sense. It also, unquestionably, makes you a better writer--good writers are rare in technical fields and learning to write well is really sort of arcane in some ways, so I wouldn't underestimate that. (Nor would I underestimate the value of good writing: bad writing sullies the fuck out of an otherwise good paper.)

Since I'm a student, I'll often have periods for many months where I don't read a single page. But whenever I come back to reading, I always find myself asking why I didn't keep the habit up. Reading encourages a sort of mindfulness (almost a meditation of sorts) that I always find myself missing once I rediscover it when I start reading again.


I didn’t read books for many years for a lot of the reasons you list. 2019 I read 24 and am already almost done with my first book of the year. I think they are worth it.

Have you tried something like audible? I discovered that I get through and retain spoken content much better than site reading. Listening to content makes reading enjoyable and there are so many fantastic books


If you’re interested, here’s some info about how I listen to content: https://medium.com/@elof/listen-to-this-f5faace03302


Just today, I went back to one of my old textbooks (Lathi's Signal Processing and Linear Systems) and came out with some really important points about Fourier analysis that I'd missed the first time around. A good, carefully written textbook makes hard choices about context, sequence, presentation, and level of detail. It's a coherent whole. All the information might be out there on the internet, but the cognitive load of evaluating whether the source is trustworthy and relevant, and of interpreting it without supporting context, is much higher on the internet than it is with a book.

And then, there are the pleasures of fiction. I can't argue for fiction other than to say that it's good in a way nothing else is, and you have to experience it to understand.

If you want to try, start with good short stories. You could do worse than the sort of "anthology of classic short stories" they sell in the bargain bin at the used bookstore. There's often gems in there. Look for O Henry, Mark Twain, de Maupassant, Dickens, maybe some of Balzac's shorter material. Skip anything that doesn't grab you. Once you've developed an appetite, try more involved works. Survivor bias operates in your favor here: 19th and early 20th century works that we're still talking about are generally quite good, and there are quite a lot of them. Both recency and copyright law oppose you finding good novels written in the last century. There are many, but you're more likely to miss something good because it's not fashionable, or read something bad because it is.

So yes. Books are worth it.


Absolutely, just the act of removing yourself from distractions and engaging with one piece makes you flex different brain muscles. I personally think you should just grab something that piques your interest, football, Murder, a beach read, whatever and give it maybe thirty minutes a day till you finish and see if you get value from it.


The few self help and TED-style books I read (or started to read) were utter shite and might as well be summarised in a tweet.

The moment I really enjoyed reading was when I dropped the idea of absorbing as much information as possible. Being comfortable with reading something that does not immediately return some value.

What reading can uniquely offer is a conversation with a very clever mind who might be dead for a hundred years. You can stop, pause think. Reread that section. Put it in current context and see what you make of it. Take a break, walk around, watch the birds and come back.

You might even find that a 10 verse poem about a blue butterfly carries more weight than any recent self-help book.


> Even if I wanted to read books, I just don't know which ones I should start with, out of the 1000 "must-read" books in my reading list.

My non-fiction reading list for the past year has been filled almost exclusively with titles plucked from HN comments. I don't consider any of them "must reads." They're all "want reads." All of them were suggested by HN posters with explanations as for why that book is the one to read on the subject; often followed by comments comparing that book to other books on the subject.

Each book I chose to read was read either because the subject interested me, or because the poster had shown that the book had changed how they viewed the world. If you don't know where to start out of the 1000 books, just start. Find one that interests you and read it. Maybe 1000 years from now we'll have AI that can recommend the perfect course of books for you to read, but for now, it isn't nearly as important to pick 'the perfect one' from the list as it is to just start reading it. And if you don't think it has value, put it down and pick up the next one.


Books are totally worth it if they interest you. I’m living on a budget and my highest discretionary expense is books, so you know I put my money where my mouth is.

In my previous life, I had the misfortune of attending a Prussian style law school which lead me to compulsively attempt to memorize every text I’ve read for years, but lately I’ve found the joy of reading again. Here are a few tips that worked for me:

0. Books are just objects, don’t treat them with reverence.

1. Order every book as paperback that you come across and find interesting. Must read lists suck. Follow your interests.

2. Have a bias for older books. The longer a book has been relevant, the more likely it will stay relevant (aka the Lindy principle).

3. Don’t read books cover to cover. Start in the middle if that’s the most interesting part and feel free skip around. Put a book down immediately if it bores you.

4. Surround yourself with books. Make sure you can always pick up something interesting wherever you are. Messy book piles are a virtue.

5. Only use ebooks for fiction or tutorial type programming books.

6. Disregard what other people think and follow your interests. If books don’t interest you, that’s ok too.


For me books are a better entertainment. I find that the long form is good because it helps build my attention span. It's all to easy to slip to barely being able to focus for more then a minute these days. That said here are some tips I've found online for reading books more effectively:

-don't worry about reading speed, you will get better with practice like anything else.

-do close the book at points and try to remember what you've just read. This can help you retain the information better. Sometimes I also like to remember that my subconscious will process the info into the neural net either way so it's like 50% remembered even if I don't consciously know it my decisions are shaped by it a little bit.

-do flip through a book and read random pages before you start. This way you can avoid books that are mostly 'fluff' or that just aren't relevant to what you want to read about. (I only heard this recently and it has been fantastic!)

Personally I like to switch back and forth between a nonfiction book, like about science or computers, and a fiction one that entertains me. That way I get the reward book after a harder book and the cycle keeps me coming back for more. To many textbooks sorts in a row and I get bored.

Another way to remember what you read better is to take notes while you read. These can be annotations in the margins or on a separate piece of paper/computer. I read that just the act of writing those things down helps you remember even if you don't look at it again. `Mind Maps` might also be useful to you in understanding what you learn.

One last thing you probably already know but telling someone else about what your reading can help you practice recall and find out what parts of it your missing like a mini oral test.


An observation from a book lover who has lately fallen into the self improvement subject, most of the books are not worth it. They all need to be either a blog article or a novella-size at best. They are usually padded up to reach the 300 page limit and seem like worth paying for.

It can be a disappointing ride. There seems to be mad rush to churn out books to capitalize on the obsession for productivity and high-achievers.

On the other hand, books in your area of interest, other than self-improvement, can delve into depths that blog posts will not have the bandwidth to achieve. They are a joy to read. Bon voyage.


I'm reading a lot and have done so for many years. It is one of the great sources of joy and richness in my life. Choosing a book is more difficult than it might seem. It sounds like you haven't encountered many great books yet. Humanity has produced about 130.000.000 books and roughly 4k are added each day.

If you are an avid reader consuming one book per week from age 20 to 80, you'll get through a little more than 3000 books. Few people make it this far. 60 years of reading don't cover the output of a single day of publishing.

There are many more great books than any single person can hope to get through in a lifetime.

Regarding the reading speed: As you read more, you will get better. With enough practice, reading becomes a fully-immersive and effortless experience (though the ideas in the book might stun you!). Your eyes and your mind get more accustomed to the practice, for example through a better knowledge of vocabulary.

Forgetting is a real issue that I struggle with as well. Spaced repetition is helping a lot of people [0].

Paul Graham (pg) makes some great points about how reading shapes the mind (so even if you don't remember all the facts, the act of reading still changes who you are) [1]

I suggest you look learning strategies to process text more efficiently and to aid retention. There is a well-rated course called "Learning how to learn" on Coursera. [2]

Since selecting books is such hard work, you can benefit from the reading lists of others, here's mine on Goodreads: [3]

[0] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html

[2] https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/10152457?view=table


I wouldn't say that books are "infinitely" better. Online content can still be good and there are truckloads of books that are garbage. But in general it is easier to find really good books than really good online non-book content.

When I wanted to learn about something then I usually first go to Wikipedia. Which by the way is OMG such an amazing resource I wish I had as a kid.

Then I move on to online articles or website devoted to the subject. Then I usually start going through books.

But here's the thing. The value of a book might be mostly just be in the bibliography at the end. Unfortunately a lot of those books aren't at the bookstore, aren't at archive.org, aren't at the library. So I'm forced to use the inter-library-loan service through the library. Which by the way is an awesome service that I just started using.

And you know what? A lot of those books are treasures.

So, no, not everything that's worth it is available online or ever at your book store.


I "learnt" java from youtube and got a job doing it.

Took me 2 years of experience to realise what low quality materials I had been using. Number of youtube views is ZERO indicator of quality. I had been mislead and held back in ways I simply couldn't understand at the time.

Doing my oracle java cert and learning the book that goes with made me competent.


Is this a joke?

Of course books are worth it, and no, you are in no way whatsoever getting equivalent experiences reading stuff on the internet.

Books are not a "big time commitment" any more than, say, watching a TV show or miniseries.

This makes me really fearful for the minds of people younger than me, and I'm only in my early 30s.


I am in love with books and the notion that you can talk with another person long dead without any distortion or distraction. Some rules I abide by:

1. Any book that you expect to read once and once only (popular science, pulp fiction, toilet-reading) rent from the library. Keep it by your bed at night and give-er by the lamplight.

2. Any book that you can read, word-over-word, end-on-end, without confusion or introspection can be consumed in condensed form. Condensed forms come in many guises:(audio-books, blog-feeds, wiki-pages etc.)

3. You are missing out on all the glories that are not defined by 1 and 2. A good book should be a conversation, held at length, over time.

You asked for philosphy in another comment:

Victor Frankyl: Man in search of meaning

Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

Jung: Development of Personality, Archetypes/Aion

Nietsche: all and any

For philosophical fiction:

Goethe: Faust

Hemingway: Death in the afternoon (this was my first glimpse into why books can provide lightness of body, displacement of time: wait for the 4th-wall-breaking-rapport with the old woman)

David Foster Wallace:Rise Simba, Infinite Jest, etc.

https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...

There have been studies that your brain scans feeds and webpages differently than text on a page. You set yourself up to not pay attention / are just "scraping the good bits"

Someone mentioned a while back that Infinite Jest (1000 page tome + 300 pages endnotes!) had ~50 pages that made the whole thing worth it. The immediate following comment was "why not just read the 50 pages?". It is the context around which we find our content that gives it worth. The internet allows you to bypass the context.


> There have been studies that your brain scans feeds and webpages differently than text on a page.

This +1. Practicing reading longform books helps your brain work on regulating and keeping a longer and longer attention span, which can be hugely helpful.

As experiments go, it might be worth swapping for a while, and seeing if you notice a change in attention and concentration. I notice when I stop reading books, I get a lot more impatient and I can't focus as well. (N=1, YMMV)


I grew up before the Internet, and I used to read a lot more. Being online has made me have very little focus for reading anything of length. I have spent time recently trying to undo this. I would say you are missing out and encourage you to make time to read some of the classics. I know it's hard to find which ones to read, it will just have to be some trial and error (not all the classics are good imo -- it's impossible for me to get into any of the Russians). I tend towards American or English classics, I suggest one of my all time favourites, it's a short one "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. I'm currently reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and enjoying it very much.


It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics one should study the masters and not the pupils.

— N.H. Abel (1802–1829)


I'm not too sure about non-fiction books -- especially popular science -- but reading (good) fiction books is definitely worth it. You might think that fiction is nothing but made up stories, but usually it contains several life lessons that were hard-earned for the author and they're placed within a relevant context.

As for technical non-fiction books, some of them can be really good and irreplacable.


(This doesn’t answer your question but feels related)

I have ADHD and find it incredibly difficult to read books.

I’ll often “read” the same pages over and over several times without actually comprehending them because after a few pages I realize I was looking at the words but thinking about something else. I also have trouble remembering to (or having the motivation to?) come back to books I’ve previously started.

I like online content because it’s easy to skim or switch to something else and not feel bad about it. I imagine over time this has made my ADHD even worse, but I’m not sure how to break the habit.

The 3-4 ADHD self-help books sitting unread on my shelf certainly haven’t helped :)


As someone else with ADHD(-PI), I think part of the answer has to be removing the potentially distracting stimuli. Online content draws your attention much more easily than books will.

I’ve found that I often won’t get back to reading a book until I make a concerted effort to get away from my phone, computer, etc. Only when I’ve eliminated the more distracting options will I get back to reading. It’s hard to get started, but it’s invariably more satisfying after the fact.


Have you tried woodworking? Do a small project, let's say, a stool. Use only manual tools. Use a plane to square boards. Use only glued parts. You'll calm tf down, plane something for two hours straight... :) best man


I have a similar problem. Focus jumps. My solution is to just read one page. Everything is our lives today is adhd anyway. The news, the internet, tv etc...


> The last few books I read were mostly filled with fluff, anecdotes, stories, jokes, and trivialities. Even if I wanted to read books, I just don't know which ones I should start with, out of the 1000 "must-read" books in my reading list.

Lindy effect should help. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Effect)

Start with classics. Or at least with books that have been out for a few years and are still talked about.

That's how I pick what to read.


As a lot of other people are saying, yes, books are worth it.

I'm 19 right now, so I grew up reading paper books and interacting a lot with the internet and video games. Around when I turned 15 I pretty much stopped reading altogether. I was (and still am) very into CSGO and kind of just dropped reading literature for playing CS with my friends. While that was/is fun, dropping literature as a pastime left a hole in me that couldn't be filled by any video game, podcast, blog post, or even eBook. I only got back into reading fiction because my best friend here at uni was talking about how much she loved Agatha Christie, and I happened to have a compendium of 5 Hercule Poirot books that had been sitting on my bookshelf (and taken with me when I moved) for about 4 years. Now I can't stop reading (again).

Reading books (for me, fiction; for others, non-fiction) widens your understanding of the world around you, the perspectives of those around you, and most importantly your own imagination. Reading literature helps me creatively solve problems and come up with inspired ideas that would've been very difficult for me to come up with otherwise. It is something I would be incomplete without.

P.S. For me paper books are 100% superior to ebooks. The feel of holding, seeing, and smelling a paper book, especially an old paper book, is so comforting and impossible to replicate with an ebook. Though, to their credit, ebooks are nice if you read relatively quickly and want to read while on the road.


Yes, books are worth it, physical books especially. 1. The automated information control that occurs online today, means that things are there one day, gone the next. This happens accross the information continuum. 2. The Pareto principle: 20% of things provide 80% of the value. Online, where new content can be created for nearly free, good information about anything can be hard to find, drowned in a sea of advertisement and distraction. In a physical bookstore or library, the cost of printing and stocking means that only things that are worth printing, are kept around. 3. Inheritance of relevancy: I enjoy getting my books from the used bookstores, because time after time I pick up some volume on history that someone has written incredible things in the margins! Of course, we have comment sections and such online, but the Pareto principle applies again here. 4. Impression and discernment of value: You can tell just from looking at the design of a book, what the intended audience is. If the authors name is bigger than the title, for example, that tells you a whole lot. If like me, you look for more uncommon, less known things, you learn to disregard anything with flashy marketing or a bestseller claim. Head straight for the plain and boring: the value is what gets it sold, whats written inside. 5. Obscure, out-of-print, actually supressed and allegedly supressed works. This goes hand in hand with number 1: Its much harder to round up 10,000 copies of a book, than to add the metadata to an automatic blacklist. Everything from textbooks, to historical autobiographies, to contemporary primary source reporting: the beast devours it all. Put it on your shelf, then it cannot be deleted.


From one of the best guides on reading a book:

“....a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.”

― Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading


And as one of your first books take a look at How to Read a Book. I've enjoyed my books much more since then. Especially since I got past my prejudice that made me feel like if I started a book I needed to finish it before trying another. These days I read many books concurrently. If I get bored or need to let my brain churn on an idea in the background I move onto a different book, usually a totally unrelated book.


It's pretty much the opposite. Stuff online, usually done for free, is usually vapid trash with facts often wrong because there's not enough money to do it right.

In contrast content from books is usually extensively researched and a wealth of valuable knowledge.

Also worth noting that the internet is a relatively new thing, so if you find yourself fascinated by a topic from the 70s or earlier you'll probably be much better off walking to your local library.


I think many of us share the same thoughts you are describing, so thanks for sharing them.

The principle I'm trying to go by is: I'm sure there are plenty of great new books, new films etc, but I still haven't read/seen way too many of the classics that people have been thinking about for decades and even centuries. At least 30 years since first publication is the mark I joke about going by. Perhaps you might add "award-winning" and/or "still in print" to your search terms. For the most part, we can be trusted with keeping the best books around. And of course that's just the principle, not the reality, as you can infer from my having read this page.

I think if you read a modern non-fiction book about self-improvement you would get a dreadful notion of what a book really is and would be right never to want to read one again. There is no fluff in a classic, no such thing as skimming it or speed reading it, it's just a totally different experience.

So I might suggest going back several years into lists of books that won the Pulitzer prize, for example, or the Man Booker prize, things like that, and seeing if something piques your curiosity. Perhaps a truly good book that would fall within the "self-help" definition is "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker. It was probably the first good book I ever read at about 24 years old, and the first time in my life I experienced sadness at getting close to the end of the book ("what am I going to do when it's over?"). I don't remember why I picked it up or why I actually read it, but I did for about an hour every day at a coffee shop that I stopped at on my way back home from work, and it was unforgettable.


I believe most of us are living a "Google Bubble". When we are online, our exposure to knowledge on a topic is limited by Search algorithms, personalizations, the availability of content that is digitized and searchable, etc. The people who comment on discussions, who creates content, etc. are also subject to this bias. This slice is not really the same as the larger body of collection of knowledge and insights about a particular topic. Even considering the limitation of knowledge that is digitized, there are plenty of sources that are not accessible and searchable (papers, talks, radio programs, conversations, personal anecdotes etc.). Books give a window to this larger world. This is the way we have done it for 5000 years. Books, in case of non-fiction, are written by people who have spent significant (sometimes their lifetime) time learning about a topic. And I believe the same logic applies for fiction. The ideas and imaginations of whole of human kind is not same as those of people who devotes time to create content online. In short, books are a different way (and arguably better) to expand your horizon.


Yes, books are definitely worth it. Whether ebooks are physical books.

> I read very slowly

The more you read, the faster you will read. Reading is a skill that must be practiced to master, just like any other skill. You wouldn't expect to play the piano 50 times and suddenly be a master pianist, would you? The same applies to reading. Read 500 books and then see what your reading speed is like.


Yes!

There's a huge gap in how much time and energy goes into most books vs online stuff. That's the part you're missing. I can name all sorts of books I'd describe as a life-changing experience, and maybe one blog post, and zero youtube videos.

A few (hopefully) practical thoughts:

1. My favorite way to find books to read is to ask people. It helps me find books I'd never have noticed. Goodreads will lead you to the lowest common denominator, but not to something that speaks to you.

2. The more you read, the faster you'll get at reading, just like anything else. Don't worry about remembering anything.

3. You seem to be looking at books as a means to an ends. I suppose in some cases that's true, I will occasionally seek out a book because I want to learn something new.

But writing is a conversation held across time and space, almost a sort of telepathy. If you're viewing it as strictly transactional, and overlooking the ability to experience their stories and ideas, I think that's where you're really missing out.


Magazines and blogs/articles exist to keep you coming back. Same with serial television shows. The content is not self-contained, or particularly high quality. Only enough to bring you back for one more episode or issue.

Books (and movies) on the other hand, are generally self-contained. The book is the product, not your subscription. The quality is often higher


I have a very similar perspective as you. Most non fiction books, being focused around a reasonably simple concept, could really be explained in a blog post (e.g. any Malcolm Gladwell book, zero to one by Thiel, Super Intelligence). By simple, I mean as opposed to complex, not necessarily easy to understand or unimportant. The main reason, I believe, for these to be books rather than posts is to examine that same concept from many vantage points to allow it to "stick". For these books, I feel like I can usually get most of the value by reading the first few chapters or many even a summary.

That being said, if you look for books on more complex topics, you find things that can't be put into a blog post (e.g. WWII, biographies, technical topics). These are things where each chapter really does bring something new. The flip side is that they're hard to read; nothing in chapter 1-n will really help you in reading chapter n+1.


Nearly all non-fiction reading is junk-reading.

Reading is an observational activity, and just like you can't learn to swim by observing swimmers you can't learn a subject by reading a book on it. The only thing that reading is good for is feeding fuel into the furnace of deliberate practice of the craft and discussions with practitioners of such. And that's how true knowledge is really acquired - putting information to a practical use. If you're not doing that you're just grinding water. A quality conversation qualifies as "practical" in that exercises the relevant parts of the brain, in fact Socrates would have you believe it's the only way to truly learn.

Even by these low standards we lack in quality reading:

- Book writers have, naturally, limited experience. Yet most are eager to summarize it and pose as "the truth", with predictably disastrous results. People who actually know a lot and a can summarize well rarely write. I know like one guy who is good at it (you know him too).

- Book writers write too much while trying, but not quite succeeding, to get to the point. Often times they try to start from the beginning and produce a theory of everything (search "it's a warm summer evening in ancient Greece" on youtube). There is a draught in the writing skill. The irony.

- Book publishers insists on larger books because they look better on the shelf and are more likely to fetch a higher price per buyer.

- Book publishers largely publish books that are easy to sell given the current fads, the ones that confirm pre-existing bias of the reader populace. It might as well be readers directly dictating what the book says.

- Online publishing has most of the same problems (except for the content length), and lots worse on top.

The only educational reading is one that directs your practice of a given field or a conversation with another practitioner. Everything else is entertainment at best and mental torture at most other times.

As to finding good books - books that stood the test of time are likely to be better quality, because fads come and go so whatever made the book popular it's something better. Often times they are dated though. Otherwise just be mindful whom you're getting your advice from. Did this person explain clearly to you how fractional reserve banking works? They might have a good idea on which book is decent for the subject.


You can look into listening to audio books while commuting. But honestly speaking, I have done that and I lost focus very hard. The problem with me is my limited vocabulary. Just like you, I read slow even though I have read strategies to read fast.

Even then, reading fast does not help if you are failing to grasp what the concept and story is on about. Hence, I read slowly to understand what the piece is talking about to make my effort and time worth it.

My only motivation to attempt to read book is the author's put a lot of time and effort writing a book and getting it published. Therefore, the time spent writing a book with numerous references used to write the book, you are indirectly reading multiple books - accumulating ideas and knowledge from all those books.

The book which I am currently reading is "Why Nation Fail", the number of references used to write the book was what made me buy it.


> You can look into listening to audio books while commuting. But honestly speaking, I have done that and I lost focus very hard.

I suggest increasing the speed of narration: slow enough you can still comprehend the content but fast enough that you have to make an effort. That works to keep my mind engaged and not get distracted.


Books are the best way to expand your cognitive capabilities. A writer spends at least 500 hours on a book. Reading a book is like having conversation with the writer. I prefer to read non-fiction books, many of which I found through HN or podcasts.

I recently switched from ibooks to google books because googles app has a superior reading experience on iOS. Plus the highlights are integrated with google docs. So after color highlighting sections I have a summary of interesting quotes automatically in a G Doc for every book in my gdrive. I haven't got the time yet to write a script to auto sync these quotes with google keep to function as a flashcard system.

I recommend the books of Jim Collins, he was a coach for Steve Jobs and personal advisor to Jeffrey Bezos. Amazons business flywheel is based on the theories developed by Jim Collins.


I never questionned the value of books but thought having online access to libraries would be a clear improvement over printed ones.

But my mind (and many people) is sensitive to the context in which you read information. A book is a passive block of sheets, it does not offer anything else than that. It helps focus. Also I suppose that our brain likes to have physical stimuli (touching pages, smell of paper, ink) and it might be a little more pleasing for your neurons than pixels on a LCD.

Now if you're not easily distracted, online version can be as good.

Lastly, I found that wikipedia, with all the value and care given in its text, lacks spirit. I can't really explain but when you read old encyclopedia you have the feeling of part of the author's mindset in the words. It's summarized and curated a bit differently. I found it nice too.

Cheers


The specific genre of books in your list ("self help") is basically not worth it.

Virtually every other type of book is. Good fiction is amazing. Science is great, especially when written at a level just above what you can comfortably understand. Some biographies are inspiring.


I'm almost 50. The last fiction book I read was Frankenstein in 1995. I haven't read a fiction book since then because it feels like a waste of time for me, personally. I do read comic books and watch movies.

I have however read a few non-fictional books from Michael Lewis, like Moneyball, Blind Side, Big Short, etc. Less than 5, though. I've read parts of hundreds of computer books for work and for education.

Do what feels natural to you. I like reading computer books rather than blog posts but it depends on how thorough the article is. I find a lot of blog posts to not be thorough enough to answer my questions, and many books are better for what I'm looking for. Others may feel differently, and it's all personal preference.


So, it's been more than half of your sentient life since you tried reading a book that was written 200 years ago... and you're prepared to write off all of fiction as a waste of time? I am begging you to see if perhaps you might have a better experience today with a more contemporary book that frankly isn't kind of dull.

I urge you to try audiobooks. There still exists a stigma that it's not "real" reading, but that is like discussion of "real" men - absurd. Audiobooks are a joy.

My personal favourite is Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson, but heck, Ready Player One, Recursion, Delta-V, Walkaway by Cory Doctorow... just give it a shot.


Yes, for me I find it a waste of time. That's a personal choice. I read comic books if I have extra time, which I enjoy. And just to be clear, I loved the book Frankenstein and it had a profound effect on my life. I just never had any incentive after that to read another fiction book.


Okay, I'm not trying to change your mind... just humour me. I'm selfishly curious, and that's all: if you haven't done it in 25 years and you were only a decade into your conscious adulthood, does it not seem even slightly possible that ruling out all contempory fiction of every genre based on a 200 year old monster allegory means it's time for a check-in? I just don't understand how you can be on this forum and also hold such a strong belief that you have anywhere near enough information to make up your mind as a fifty year old.

What if you're wrong?


Again, I'm sorry if I'm pissing you off. I mean no harm.

You're just... kind of blowing my mind. I've just never met anyone with this particular set of beliefs before.


Definitely. I'm currently reading The Reading Life, a collection of C.S. Lewis' musings on reading, and I couldn't recommend a better set of arguments for the value of books in general (though it does have a humanities flavor).

As others have noted, the stuff you find online usually isn't nearly as deep or interesting as what you'll get out of sticking with a good book, nor is the reading experience the same. For historical reasons, the way we consume text on a computer is rather sporadic. The internet, generally speaking, is a giant distraction machine; it's not meant for deep reading. Maybe one day it can be, but not today. Of course, your mileage may vary.


Books typically (not always) have far more depth regarding the topics they cover. If you do not read books, you are only scratching the surface of the shared knowledge available to you because, no, most of their content is not freely available online.

You are correct that not all books are good, though. For someone like yourself who doesn't have a habit of reading, nor ideal speed and retention, you'll want to select carefully. My advice would be to go ahead and keep reading internet-based content, but as you do so, to think about which topics you wish you could dive deeper on. And then ask others for book recommendations on those topics.


I read a little over 50 books this year as a personal challenge. I think only one of them wasn't worth reading and only because it was really out of my wheel house and I just didn't enjoy it. It took up a considerable amount of time, but I enjoyed every minute of it. It was absolutely worth doing and I learned a lot that I wouldn't have come across on the internet without specifically looking for it.

Start with something small and work your way up. If you're on hacker news, maybe read a science fiction book, there's likely a movie out there that you enjoy, start with something that was adapted from a book.


Generally hate leaving comments that just link to other things, but since I haven't seen them linked nor have time to form a full opinion, a few pieces in this space:

- Sarah Perry - "Why Books are Fake" - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/06/01/why-books-are-fake/ - being a bit ironic here since her first point is "Every citation is either a homework assignment or a promise." and here I am hyperlinking :P

- Andy Matuschak - "Why books don’t work" https://andymatuschak.org/books/ - and related econtalk interview: https://www.econtalk.org/andy-matuschak-on-books-and-learnin...

- Naval Ravikant's Tim Ferris interview on what books to read: https://tim.blog/naval-ravikant-on-the-tim-ferriss-show-tran... - "A number of people asked me what books I’m reading now. This is a difficult question, because, at any given time, I’m at probably about 50 books on my Kindle, and probably about six or seven hard-cover or soft-cover books that I’m cycling through. I opened up my kindle. I look through. Based on my mood, I’ll flip through to whatever book matches my mood. I’ll flip to whatever part of it looks the most interesting, and I’ll just read that part. I don’t read in the sequential order. The most important thing that does for me is it lets me read on a regular basis. I can actually just pull up my kindle here, and I can read off the names of some of these books that I’m reading. I can give you mini-reviews, but I haven’t actually finished any of them. They’re all in progress."

I tend to disagree with Naval on a number of things, yet that's how I'm currently reading - though it's limited to 3-4 books all in a similar domain. I'm taking notes and trying to find relationships between their viewpoints.


Books are infinitely superior to internet content for most things. Basic facts, no. I read lots of nonfiction and it’s so much more informative and deep than a blog post. Reading both fiction and nonfiction gives a richer and deeper understanding of the human condition and makes your life choices better informed and more productive.

One thing that the internet does do better is giving a read about the latest trends and anecdata. You can get details and perspective that is “under the radar”. But otherwise, internet news is throwaway pulp. So much news is written everyday and 95% of it is forgotten immediately.


Yes you’re missing out.

There are a lot of bad books out there that waste your time (particularly in self-help).

For an example of an excellent non-fiction book that gives sweeping background to a topic that you can’t get from a blog post read The Emperor of All Maladies (about cancer).

For one about Physics read Our Mathematical Universe.

There’s also Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Rationality which was a large collection of blog posts put into book form.

For fiction I’d recommend The Nix for a really good novel.

The difference between good and bad in books is huge and part of the difficulty is that it’s hard to know up front if a book will be a waste of your time.


The best way to access the ideas of people you cannot talk to is to find the depth in their books. I'm thoroughly enjoying reading a book on Aristotle's work. There's so many well articulated perspectives on the world that challenge and grow my own perspective on the world that I would not like to live in a place without access to hundreds of great people and their books.

The internet is like the Starbucks version of the library. Fun, exciting with lots of sugar and broad coverage but lacking quality and is probably not good to have a lot.


A lot of people have already told you that reading slowly just means you don't have enough practice.

Also consider this: you watch a video or listen to a podcast on some subject. If the speaker is a good actor, you are more likely to believe them even if everything they say is bullshit.

Reading (well, after you actually get used to reading) is less of an assault on your sensory inputs so you're more likely to be able to form your own opinion about the subject.

Edit: also try reading fiction as entertainment. A lot of it is much better than the current Hollywood drivel.


A really good book has a sense of permanence and speciality to it that outlasts typical online content.

Philosophy and mathematics books, for example, tend to exist outside time because they are dealing with fundamental unanswerables and constructions of assumption, not "extent of our knowledge" empirical observations as with science. If their thinking is robust, they never go out of date.

History books likewise indulge in rich storytelling about what happened and why. The story is assembled with fact, but filtered through the historiographical lens of the author. There are many niches of history that can only be studied in books. History is easily revised, but each telling can uncover a more "complete" truth.

And fiction, of course, captures the world as a non-factual experience and therefore says the things that can't be said(no words for them, little concept or attention given to them). As a storytelling medium, writing is not everyone's preference, but it is the singular most productive form we have, and so a lot of fiction books express forgotten corners and small whispers of thought.

Given that you have a serious temperament I would recommend starting with very old books from ancient times, since those are the ones least likely to be "obsolete" - power laws being what they are.


I'm in the same situation although probably older than OP, so I've read more than 50 books throughout my life. The question of whether reading books is worth it is something that I'm also struggling with. Not only do I not retain information the same way when I'm reading a book, but reading paper makes me tired and so I get through 2-3 pages a night before falling asleep.

A few years ago I observed myself hearing an interesting author on a podcast. I downloaded the audio book and loved it (Chris Voss, and the book is never split the difference) so I subsequently found every podcast the author was a guest on and listened to all the podcasts. It's really hard to say that the audio book was worth it, because I generally find live conversations more engaging and they make the material easier for me to remember. For non-fiction it might be faster, cheaper and better to just listen to the podcast tour rather than read the book or listen to the audiobook

Currently I'm in this predicament with Scott Galloway and the Algebra of Happiness. I listen to the Pivot podcast, found 20 other podcasts or videos where Scott has been the guest and I'm not sure that the book, or audiobook would have that much value. Honestly, the biggest reason to buy it would be to support the author.

As to the OPs question, there have been a few paper books that I've found very much worth it. Zero to One and Hard Thing About Hard Things are books that I've bought and read multiple times. I also get value out of classic fiction because it's so high quality, inspiring and contributes to shared culture and understanding of the world.


Often the point of a non-fiction book is to spend hours thinking deeply about the book's subject. You could probably get the major ideas in the length of a short blog post. But that's spending 10 minutes thinking about the topic as opposed to 2-3 hours.

You can think of it as the difference between reading about a subject online and having a long conversation about that subject with friends. For me personally, the length and guided interaction of a book makes a difference


Definitely. Few years ago I subscribed to this service called "Blinkist" which summarizes whole books into several pages.

But soon enough I understood it's pointless. I got superficial understanding of the books from the summary, but I forgot it just as quickly. If you want to extract value from a book, you must give it time, you must think about it, go deep, try different associations etc.


I mostly read fiction books and technical O'Reilly stuff. Would highly recommend both. Reading books is infinitely more relaxing than browsing content online aimlessly.


I find this thread interesting, but I believe many commenters are rationalizing why books are good by focusing too much on arguments around information quality, or trying to draw some differences between the motivations for paper vs digital writing, ... but I don't see it that clearly. I'm personally much more curious about others like:

- how much influence does it have the fact that you have to actually sit down, focus on something, sit somewhere comfortable, or not so comfortable but ready to work on a material... or the fact that it's a book, that it's long, probably dense to read, much more dense to write, that there's some sacrifice there, so you face the material in a completely different way you would face a random post or youtube video? we also definitely value very differently the things we pay for than those that are free. if you paid for it, you might want to rationalize it was worth it, and that might actually lead you to try to get something more from it that you would generally get if it was free and you didn't care. if you paid for it there's also a higher chance you were looking for it consciously, etc.

I think it would be interesting to measure those and others by collecting writing from different sources and presenting it on different formats. while I agree that on average the quality and the signal provided by a book is higher than that of a random video or blog post, I feel in many cases we are biased to give books too much credibility, and we really underestimate a lot of online content. there are many other factors, but I think we should open the perspective a bit more if we really want to discover why books are so good


> - how much influence does it have the fact that you have to actually sit down, focus on something, sit somewhere comfortable, or not so comfortable but ready to work on a material...

Personal anecdote...

I started reading books again about 2 years ago, after many years of not reading much. At that time it was a revelation for me, and I grew to despise (some forms of) blog style writing and videos (which was also related to the first two books I read being about modern media and advertising; The Attention Merchants and Amusing Ourselves To Death).

After a couple of months of very slow reading, and learning how to read (actively engaging with the material, etc.), my ability to focus and to process information in this mode notably increased.

Nowadays I quite like watching videos (mostly of lectures) and reading well-written online content, and engage with it in just the way you describe. But I think before this period where reading books again taught me the necessary skills for this type of engagement it was not possible for me to process online content in this way. Too many ubiquitous distractions.


Most of the comments offer broad strokes of advice. I'll offer some here with examples but a huge caveat is that I don't usually read full books so take my advice with a pinch of salt. :/

Type I books: Recipes refer to books that teach you "how". They are often must-reads in the topic. Example: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34689843-disciplined-ent... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18652777-disciplined-ent...

Type II books: These are controversial, non-mainstream books that challenge your thinking. Example: failory.com articles

Type III books: Wisdom refer to books that teach you "why". They are generalisations that offer a thousand feet view but often suffer from survivorship bias if one doesn't read it critically. Example: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18050143-zero-to-one


May I suggest "How to Read a Book"?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18600043-how-to-read-a-b...


Then you come out with the Greatest Books of the Western Civilization and you have enough reading for a lifetime and more.


I'm sorry that you have viewed books this way for at least ten years. Deeper treatment of a given topic or story necessarily takes a long time to explain and the format of longform text exposition is called a book. They are worth reading. Also many are timeless, most problems are not new. Please read books and focus at first on books considered to be timeless classics. It sounds like you will be pleasantly surprised. I expect this will enrich your life a lot in ways you probably don't know exist. Don't expect immediate measurable benefits. Also don't give up after reading one or two. Also you will get faster at reading them.

I think a big part of the problem here is that if you focus on topical and especially self-help books, the content in them is shallow, mostly meaningless bullshit that is comparable in quality to online discussion. As a good general rule don't read anything marketed as self help. And I can't emphasize enough how shallow and low value online discussion generally is.

Fiction is good. Non-fiction can be good if you know what you want, but popular non-fiction is more likely to be bullshit. I recommend One Hundred Years Of Solitude, which is widely regarded as one of the best novels ever.


Most of what you're talking about is non-fiction "answers". Long form writing isn't particularly conducive to reading online (mostly meaning the web/HTML pages), but obviously you could do so via a PDF of a book. However, you're completely missing out on long-form fiction if you don't read "books". I'd recommend you read this recent article about binge reading [1], as it concisely captures what you're likely missing out on: the engrossing nature of a multihour in-depth read.

I now do most of my reading electronically (in my case via the Kindle iOS and Android apps, but I'm about to get a Kindle Oasis, because it's finally good enough), so don't restrict yourself to reading physical books. If you happen to have an Amazon Prime account, you can read plenty of books for free via Kindle. So you can also do this as a "no risk" experiment.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/04/opinion/sunday/why-you-sh...


A lot of useful ideas are pretty timeless, and for learning fundamental technical content, a _good_ book is worlds better than a collection of blog posts and wikipedia pages. I remember when I was learning about quaternion math, I spent a few days googling around, but often different authors would use different notational conventions, or have different assumptions (e.g. whether the coordinate system is right or left-handed), so the math would be subtly different. Not to mention the ones that were just flat-out wrong.

So I went to the library, browsed through several books to find one that seemed most relevant, and ended up checking out "Quaternions and Rotation Sequences" from J Kuipers. Having a single well-thought-out book that walked from the basic background all the way through, with consistent notation, was way easier to follow than the scattershot collection I'd found online.

So in general I'd say if you're optimizing for the most up-to-date information on a subject that's changing quickly, looking online is probably your best bet. If you want to learn something more foundational and can find a good book about it, I'd definitely go for that.


In the broad, reading books is worth it. Not every book. Not even most of them. (It's helpful to avoid the sunk-cost fallacy. You've already incurred whatever cost or risk came with obtaining the book--it's fine to give it the lesser of 1/5th or 50 pages to hook you, and move on if it doesn't.)

I find that I'm more generative than usual (i.e., I become a fountain of creative ideas) when I'm reading an engaging book.

In the specific, it depends who you are (generally, but also like at a specific time) and what you're looking for. I think there is value in reading Great Works, but I've also read plenty of them that I found boring and unrewarding.

Maybe a better place to start is with a deep (but general-audience-friendly) dive into an event, place, time, person, thing, or technology that you've either found intriguing for a long time, or find yourself surprised that you've never heard about. Looking for something narrow (i.e., probably not a war or a country or an industry--but maybe a battle, person, unit, company, neighborhood) may help you filter for books on topics that the writer also found deeply engaging.


I mostly read literature, fiction, and classics. Occasionally I read some modern science fiction and fantasy. Very rarely do I read the advice of someone that I don't know.

Fiction (and some forms of non-Fiction) are about our inner life. They help us discover questions to ask, how we feel, guide us in our understanding of others, society, and the world at large.

My favourite books tend to be about outsiders: L'Entranger, Fahrenheit 451, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, etc... I often find myself at odds with people, with popular opinion, and sometimes even with society. Reading about these figures has given me a lot to think about my place in relation to all of these outside forces, question my own moral compass in relation to other "outsiders," and even work on understanding the nature of otherness.

I've also loved The Nature of Things, The Prince, Days by Moonlight... poetry by Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith. They all take me places to where I can never go and leave me a different person than I was before.

Books aren't meant to be consumed. They're meant to be inhabited, lived in, worn like a favourite coat borrowed from a friend.

I can't imagine life without books.


I read much less than I used to, but these days I tend to consume a non fiction book at least every 2-4 weeks (sometimes more), either by reading or by audio book (the library here is fantastic for this).

I would say you are missing out, given you read slow, I suggest an audio book ( which you can playback faster than normal speed ). BUT make notes.

NO... none of that "that sounds like a good idea, but can't be bothered".... MAKE NOTES. Or at the very least write a detailed review of the book. Put it on goodreads or something like that.

this will vastly increase your retention AND get your brain to do its own analysis on the material.

For non fiction, which I mostly prioritize, occasionally I'll read a fiction book, I suggest read widely over these subjects: History, Tech, philosophy, autobiographies, science, social sciences, economics. Some of which may sound dry, but there are many well written and interesting books on those subjects. Those areas provide a series of mental hooks that all kinds of other information hangs on (also in the world of fiction you can see authors inspiration from those topics as well )


"I wonder if I'm missing out?" It depends on what you're looking for. If you are only looking to read about the most bleeding edge stuff, then keeping up online is the thing to do.

"Are books worth it? Is it more true for some fields than others? Is it more true for older books?" Yes. Maybe. Maybe.

I love books because they always take the path of depth on topics. A book on psychology will offer more than a single post. From a book, I get list of examples that allow me to remember concepts better, ,and give me ideas on how I can apply those concepts to my own life. Books can also give context to what's happening today. It's easier to catch up on a topic by a reading a book that summarizes a topic / field that it is to look for the information online.

And if the concern is cost, and you're in the US, consider getting a library card and download libby (https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby/). Free rentals of audiobooks from your local libraries.


My experience attempting to optimize information intake:

-Many books are no better than podcasts or articles, and only leave you with a handful of takeaways.

-But the best books are fantastic and well worth the time/money.[1]

-Audiobooks are great if you integrate them into your routines. Think commuting, getting ready in the morning, exercising, etc.

-Videos (e.g., documentaries) tend to be the most informative per unit time for non-technical content, but there are far fewer of them for most topics.

-Re-reading/viewing the best content repeatedly addresses forgetting and amortizes purchase prices.

[1] This may not be a result of them being books per se; it could be more that the top .1% of content on any medium tends to be excellent, and reading books gives you access to another pool of top content. Though I've also found that many people who really know what they're talking about or have exceptionally interesting lives write books, not articles. This might be because articles are too short, they know that people will pay for their content, and/or they want the reputational benefits of publishing a book.


There has been an influx of information. And it applies to books as well. There are tons of books written by ever growing breed of aspiring writers. Most of the recent books tend to be full of

> fluff, anecdotes, stories, jokes, and trivialities.

The amount of insights in each book have grown less and less.

That said, books are still the best source of information. The problem is - with ever growing list of recommendations it is easy to get overwhelmed with your to-read lists.

> I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list on GoodReads, but almost never bother to read any.

I was in your position too. Then I read Straight Line Leadership (one of the few books which is really short and to the point) (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11556152-straight-line-l...)

One of big takeaways from the book was - Knowledge acquired and not used puts you in the same category as an uneducated person. Learn stuff and then use it.

Since then I have worked towards identifying what I really want in life and then reading stuff geared towards it.

For example, after reading tons of recommendations on HN about NVC, I tried the audio recording from YT. I was half way there I got bored and gave up.

I thought it over and found that NVC didn't align with what I wanted "now" in my life. I might acquire skill but never use it. And I will end up forgetting most of it with time. So I have put in on hold and drawn up a plan on how and when I will need NVC. Currently I plan to get to NVC in the 2nd quarter of this year and doggedly pursue to applying in my life.


Most books are wordy. But then again so are most articles, podcasts, and videos.

Good books, however, are some of my favorite things: The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, On Writing Well by William Zinsser.

One advantage of a book by someone who is both (a) an expert in the field, and (b) an expert at expression, is a coherent, thorough treatment of a subject, from start to finish. It's usually best to first get your hands dirty for a few weeks and then search for the best book on the subject (rather than the other way around). For example, I fiddled with JavaScript, writing little snippets, got them to kind of work. But I could not say at that time that I understood JavaScript. And had I tried to learn JavaScript by reading scraps here and there online I wonder if I would have ever developed a coherent understanding. What I did was buy the O'Reilly book, JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, by Brendan Eich, which is 500 pages, and I read it cover to cover. I was then ready to write my own framework :)


David Flanagan wrote "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide", I did not. Not sure why you thought I did -- please tell me in case there is an error somewhere I can help correct. Thanks.


> I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations, YouTube videos, CliffsNotes, podcasts, Reddit posts/comments, blog articles, etc.

I don't think this is true... while conversations may refer to certain sections or summarize certain things, topics of great depth require a lot of time. There's no substitute for reading the original source.

> One issue for me is that books are a very big time investment.

This is one of those "is this a feature or a bug?" situations. Reading for a long time slow you down on purpose. It's meant to create moments of critical thinking and inspiration. It's meant for you to sit down and truly think.

I do agree that, still, reading takes way too much time. I don't read a lot. I usually read on vacation/airplanes, or if I can't sleep at night. Because they take a long time, I'm also very picky about the books I _do_ end up reading. For learning things, though, I usually listen to podcasts or watch videos at 2x the speed.

And lastly.... have you tried reading fiction?


I think you are confusing information gathering with understanding. To give you a practical example: consider the book “How to draw portraits in charcoal” by Nathan Fawkes (great book btw). You can find all the main points of the book online condensed in bullet point lists. In fact here are the main three: get to know the 3d shape you want to draw and learn to project a simplified version on paper; simplify, group and design areas of dark and areas of light; keep the values in the areas of light separate in value space from those of the areas of dark (the value distribution should be roughly two peaks that don’t touch).

So how much better are you at drawing portraits in charcoal after reading the list? Not much. What matters is putting the principles in practice.

Good books design an experience to help you do that. They should be treated as bibles to look at for guidance, knowing that another human being that already acquired the skill has done his best to provide a good map to speed up your development.


One benefit that books have over articles, reddit comments, youtube, etc. is that they're hard to write. Consequently, people who write books on a subject are usually very knowledgeable and invested in it, meaning that books are more likely to contain good information than other media.

Usually, when I hear an interesting idea online, the person relaying it got it from a book.


Most books don't age well, you're correct. Which is why you should read old books. Old books that are still around today are actually the few that were good enough to keep around. The crappy books from back then have long since aged out and been forgotten.

Meanwhile the "bleeding edge" is still so new, that the crap hasn't aged out of it yet, so your good-to-crap ratio is going to be lower. And while I'm on the subject of crap, don't read too much self-help - not that it's necessarily crap, but being a motivational type thing, it tends to be, essentially, a sales pitch - either for the ideas in the book itself, or possibly for more cynical things such as ancillary product$ or other book$, or for the author's cult of personality. That sort of thing will tend to be, as you said, filled with disconnected fluff/anecdotes/stories etc.

Though at the same time I had to laugh that you complained that "... books ... were mostly filled with ... stories." Yep they sure are! Done right, a story is sometimes the best way to tell something. Problems can be solved obliquely don'tcha know. You might learn more about "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (to pick a classic self-help title) by reading something like Dostoyevsky (though I wouldn't recommend that as a first try).

Get you some fiction. A book that captures something of the universal essence of being human, that's a book that can transcend time, and that's why, again, somebody and a bunch of other somebodies decided to keep reprinting or republishing it. Find a book or an author you believe in, that you consider worth it. Because that was your question. It's partly a self-fulfilling answer. Are books worth it? Read some books and find out.

Any time you skim something, you are putting yourself above the author, making yourself their editor essentially, deciding which parts of what they wrote, needed to actually be written and which parts can be skipped. You're probably not even reading this now, huh fucker? Ha, got you. Seriously though, find an author you can trust, and then surrender to them and their book more. Instead of thinking you know best what can be skipped, actually assume the author knows what they're doing, and wrote all those words on purpose. That won't work if you don't trust them, and it won't work if the author is no good (i.e. can't be trusted).

I bet this approach will also make you, to a surprising degree, remember stuff, whereas before, you (maybe correctly) surmised that nothing in the book was particularly important. You probably had yourself a crap writer right there, that's what that was.


Yes, books are worth it, and you are missing out. It's fine to read them online, but Reddit comments, daily conversations, Cliff's Notes, etc., are not an adequate substitute, and neither are books filled with fluff, anecdotes, and trivialities. Bullet-point-style summaries give you the illusion of understanding, and maybe a preview of what you could learn, but actual learning is something else.

Learning is when you become able to do things you didn't know how to do before. Books, especially textbooks, are a useful resource for learning. But just reading a book, even a good one, will not cause you to learn by itself. You still have to spend effort on practicing the skills the book discusses.

Most of the information from books is freely available online on Library Genesis. But be careful; some books on Library Genesis are there without a license from their copyright holders, which makes it illegal in some jurisdictions to download them.


I believe 2 things about books (with no citations provided so don't believe me but if interest search for studies) reading books helps keep our memory and concentration in top shape, possibly reading long articles is OK in that regard, too.

Reading text books helps us learn things we didn't know we needed to know.

ie if you've learnt the basics of programming, you're going to solve programming problems using the skills you know. If you get stuck you might ask or search for a question framed with your current skills, it might be the wrong question to ask though, similar to the XY problem. You'll probably be able to solve the problem the way you want to solve the problem, but it could be the wrong way to solve the problem.

If you keep doing this, not reading text books on programming and just asking or searching for questions when you get stuck, it's going to take a lot longer to master the skill. This is all my opinion and not fact.


“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” -- George R.R. Martin


>I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations, YouTube videos, CliffsNotes, podcasts, Reddit posts/comments, blog articles, etc.

Are you exclusively talking about reading for learning or are you including reading for pleasure? Both are "worth it" in my opinion, but if you are including reading for pleasure the idea that anyone could think this blows my mind.

Do you enjoy film/TV? Because if so you could think of what I just quoted as being equivalent to saying "Oh I don't need to watch anything. I just eavesdrop on watercooler discussions and watch highlight clips".

Or in other words good books are more than the sum of their parts. CliffsNotes and comments can be interesting but won't include the full context, the playful uses of language, the pacing, and so much more.... They won't include the art of the text.


Reading something by someone who is passionate about and an expert at the craft of writing — be it literature (which has special pleasures and gifts of its own), or nonfiction.

It is a unique way to learn about another persons interior universe and gain additional perspective on the world.

It is still the case, I believe, that the very best writers publish their writing in print — books or reputable magazines.

Obviously they are online too but more are in print.

And if you consider works which are seminal in their field or have withstood the test of time —— print.

Lastly there are studies showing that our brains process information differently when reading from a book Or magazine (or even a printed out PDF, probably) because of the physical interaction occurring along with the mental one (or something like that).

There are definitely people who find it easier to learn in other ways and that is totally legit.

If you haven’t tried though you should give it a shot.


There's a lot of dark matter, content not indexed or not highly ranked by search engines. If you want to go really deep into a topic, PhD level etc., you're eventually going to want to look at a few physical books that simply aren't available online. But you'll find some echo of them online, at least the parts that are easy to explain and understand.

When people are telling you to read books they aren't referring to those kinds of books though; they're usually talking about popular nonfiction books published in the last few years. My experience there has been that books are slightly better edited and fact-checked than online blog posts, but it's not really sufficient and they are often still full of bullshit. There are good books and bad books and the range of variation is similar to everything else written.


I was like you. I spent my first 10 years after college reading essentially 0 books, instead filling my reading/idle time with news, podcasts, and other pursuits.

When I started my company, my co-founder was reading books at a heavy clip, and was suddenly coming in with great ideas to discuss, new perspectives on things, and a whole world of different opinions based on what he was reading.

I vowed to keep up with the awesome pace he was setting, got over my "audiobooks aren't real reading" stigma, and have since torn through over 100 books on 2x.

I have learned SO many amazing things about business, history, my own philosophy, and how to interact with other people through reading. Reading has enriched every possible portion of my life.

I typically read 3 business or self-enrichment books for every 1 fiction book I allow myself, and I find that's a great balance.


> got over my "audiobooks aren't real reading" stigma, and have since torn through over 100 books on 2x

So in your post when you refer to "reading", do you actually mean listening to audiobooks? While audiobooks have their place, I don't believe them to be the equivalent of reading. To think so is to believe the value of the book is the content itself, but literature as a medium is more than its written word. Literature can be an art, and not just in terms of prose and the writer behind it, but also in cases before mass printing was invented and entire books were written and illustrated painstakingly by hand.

And between reading and listening, I wouldn't be surprised if reading required more "brain power" to process, in the same way that (supposedly) reading does compared to watching TV. The auditory system is just more innate than the process of reading is, which is a learned skill you aren't born with. Of course this makes audiobooks more accessible and easier to digest, which would be one of their merits for a lot of people. This is my largely unsubstantiated opinion and I'm not trying to insinuate anything in particular. I just believe reading to be its own distinct pastime and skill.

Personally, I can't stand listening to audiobooks, especially while doing menial tasks like chores, because it feels like anytime I get distracted, the words go in and come out the other ear. The retention just isn't there, it might as well be background noise.


For me, it's all about focus. The internet brings you anything but focus. Our generation have every learning capabilities except focused mind and focus is the important key to learn anything substantially. Yet our attention are fragmented, shattered, and being manipulated everyday by the internet and social media.

The nature of internet is always distracting. Even while you are reading something, you unconsciously thinking about other thing you might do, in a most frictionless way possible -- just a click away. The book, reading in quiet environment, cut that distraction off completely (I mean, technically you can think about hundreds of thing too, but it's not just a click, tap or swipe away)

I used to read tons of article I save in my Pocket app all day, which itself miles better than junk content on social media of course, but even then, at the end of the day I cannot tell myself what I really learn at all — everything feels, rushed, shallow, distracted. I don't know, I found myself never have real 'focus' when I read online, even what I read is good.

Back to your question, IMO, one good books worth more than hundreds of (sometimes marketing-induced) online articles out there. Also, those 'cutting edge' trend is just that, a 'trend'. Thing that just got popular for whatever reason at certain point of time. It comes and goes quickly than you will ever remember. Most trend dies away after a short while and you don't missing anything at all my friend. If that trend is actually good or important, then you'll see it in one way or another anyway, when all the dust settle — the same with all the "news" out there. You don't have to know them at all and still perfectly fine.

On the contrary, good book with good content always stand the test of time. New doesn't always mean good and old doesn't always mean outdated, especially things about how human think about something. You can still learn a lot from wisdom in the past, that doesn't existed in today's fragmented, always-on environment.


First of all no one remembers everything they read. If you spend time reading lots of books you will find things that stick out to you personally that you are surprised other people didn't bring up in the summaries you are accustomed to hearing elsewhere. You'll also find yourself disagreeing with other people's summaries and interpretations of books you've read.

So yes, I would say reading books is worth it. And the best way to start is for now is put aside your "must read" list. Instead think about something you're personally curious about right now this moment and pick a well regarded book that touches on that thing you're curious about. Don't limit yourself to nonfiction, if you're interested in memory maybe you could pick up Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow or maybe you could choose Tom McCarthy's amazing novel Remainder. If you're interested in live performance maybe you could pick up Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Theater or maybe try Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater.

Then repeat, follow your curiosity again. Pick another book, maybe the first book you read pushes you towards selecting another. You want more from the same author or topic. And don't be shy about not finishing things, sometimes a book doesn't pay off on the curiosity that led you to it. I often start reading a handful or more of books at a time until I find one that really grips me. Or just keep alternating between reading lots of different things for weeks. Kindle & the kindle app are actually very good for this because you can send yourself samples of books so you can try them before investing in them.

I would also say in general, the depth of knowledge shared, and the quality of work put into a book tends to be much greater than 99% of what you find online. It is a lot of work to publish a book, the authors, editors and everyone else involved want to make it worth it. Not that there isn't great online content, but people work hard to make books worth the time investment.

You are missing out. At least try to get out there and read.


I own about 600 books currently. Ranging from A-Z in terms of subject matter. When I've moved, it has been a huge hassle to box and move and re-shelve them. My wife gets pretty irritated about this.

I wouldn't change this.

Physical book on specific subject matter tend to be very thorough compared to any content I could find online.

Physical books make me pay attention to it. They are right there in front. No blue light emissions, no notifications.

Physical books cost money. You can never sell them for anything near what you paid. I want every dollars worth our of them.

When someone asks me about a subject, if I own books on them I am happy to part with them and pass them along to that person provided they agree to do the same, if asked one day.

OP, please read more books, on any topic. Your mind, stress, creative spark will thank you.


What are your thoughts on ebooks?

I have never had 600 books in my library but couple years ago when moving I simply got rid of every single physical book I owned.

I have not bought a new one since. All my books are electronic and I don't feel like I am losing anything. Of course there is a chance that in 15 years all my backups are gone or nothing can read the several formats I have them in but how likely is that?

And until that is happening, I can carry the hundreds of books in my pocket or search through them easily on my computer when needed. It makes moving so much easier and saves up a lot of space.


This is true. It’s valid.

For me if I carry a book with me I’m going to read it. Carrying the weight of the physical books ensures I read it. I don’t want to carry it around for nothing.


One thing I have found to be a big help is graphic novels. I used to love reading quite a bit, and fell out of it for a couple years as I gained more freedom with screens. Graphic novels are not given enough credit considering the myriad of excellent stories they have housed. Books like Watchmen, V for Vandetta, and The Dark Knight Rises are all very well written, with excellent writing, fleshed out characters, and thought - provoking themes. Graphic Novels are also great for people bored by long periods of imagery, because the pictures in each panel provide than in a quick glance. If you don't really like traditional novels, I urge you to try reading comics. They can be a great way to reintroduce you to books as well.


You're definitely missing out. Some of the most challenging intellectual experiences of my life have been obtained from books. Rarely, if ever, does a digital media experience come close.

Take one for example: _The Logic of Life_ by Francois Jacob. This book gives a detailed account of the history of biology as a discipline and shows how change occurs as a result of feedback between human concepts (our understanding of what life is) on the one hand and concrete techniques (the technology used to investigate living systems) on the other. Jacob has an incredibly detailed knowledge of this field and, if you read his book, you are invited on an fantastic journey that relatively few people get to experience.

And that's just one book...


I've been reading a lot ever since I learned how to do it. While I do read a lot of stuff online,most of the stuff out there is just low quality crap. Yes, there's some brilliant stuff too,but it's probably 0.001% of the overall. For instance,I recently started reading a pretty heavy book( 800+ pages). It is well written, factually correct, the author doesn't assume I'll just google some other 20 tutorials to make his work and the depth of knowledge is outstanding. No blog would ever match it. Yes,I can get all the info that is in the book on the internet,the time commitment just googling, verifying and understanding would exceed the time itdi take to read 5 books of similar size.


There is nothing that replaces reading great fiction for your growth and development as a human.


You're missing out.

For one, relying on information to surface in light-weight form means that - even if it surfaced - you would be behind the curve.

Secondly, it probably doesn't surface. A heavy book you engage with builds rich models: you don't get that from light-weight online content.

Thirdly, if you want to positively differentiate yourself, acquiring information others don't have is one method. Reading books others don't read is one way to get that information.

Anecdote: Feynman used to have others ask him to look at the integrals they'd been unable to solve, and he was often able to solve them - something he attributes to having read a different math book that presented some seldom-presented integration technique.


> Are books worth it?

Maybe not for you. They are for me. This is impossible to answer generally.

> Is it more true for [older/some fields]?

I don't believe there will be such a simple heuristic. I've read many books that were not worth it, many I did not finish, and the common aspects were:

1. The topic did not interest me / My motives to read were not the right ones

2. The author was not very good / The content was low quality

You can prevent(1), but you'll have to at least give it a glance to identify (2) where you can just drop it.

> Isn't most of the information from books freely available online?

Including books? Free online books? What's the point here?

> Am I missing out?

Maybe not. If you don't get enjoyment from books, move on. There are plenty of rich and informative entertainment nowadays.


Yes, absolutely. Books contain a lot of good information. You're a slow reader, I'm an ADHD reader, therefore I find that audiobooks are a stellar way to read. I plow throw 3-6 audio books a month, I've got my overdrive app from my local library, plus hoopla and Audible.

In tech land, I find some books, like pragmatic programmer or design patterns. Tech books have the problem of being poorly written. Fiction books on the other hand and many business books have a tendency to be of really high quality.

A good publisher is Random House, they have a really good audio department too. I really enjoy Scott Brick as a narrator; also checkout authors like Nelson Demille, Tom Clancy and John Grisham.


A general rule of thumb is the older the written word, more valuable it is. Accordingly, the books that have been around for a while and are still well-known they give highest value from the time you invest in reading them. The content on Internet is mostly about current events and it lacks the depth that old books have. News or opinions on current events will most likely become irrelevant and obsolete. The stuff worth reading will survive the test of time and you can read it in future. Staying up-to-date with current happenings is overrated, because most of those things don't happen our daily life. Therefore best invest your time reading meaningful books.


There's a ridiculous amount of information on most topics you can learn the hard way on the internet and through horrific trial and error for free or the easy way by reading one solid book at a nominal cost (or for free, since libgen exists).


The idea that you can get 80% online what you can get from books is somewhat true for "fluff" books such as many business books and self-improvement books.

Serious books, however, are incomparable more valuable than either fluff books or internet reading. They require a bigger investment, but they can give you whole new ways of seeing. That only comes through a substantial investment and effort to see with a new perspective.

Try some books that have stood the test of time, such as those published by Everyman's Library or Modern Library. Often insight comes not so much from keeping up with the bleeding edge, as from about understanding enduring truths about life and the world.


Reading a book--a real, classic book, not a business, technical or self-help book--can literally change you as a person. Read the right book, and the entity in your body reading stuff on the internet might react differently afterwards.


I also struggled with books. Despite being an avid WW2 and science fiction fan I avoided lengthy texts and just got my information online. As has been said many times over that information is often, although not always, low quality. For me I never connected my dyslexia with my inability to read (obvious I know) then I discovered audio books and my world changed.

I’d recommend also trying audio books. The format is not for everyone, but quality stories, be they fiction or non-fiction expand the mind.

Someone here recommended the Count of monte cristo as an amazing read, and I'm currently half way though, its thrilling! Thank you to that person btw.


I read probably over 1000 books, many more than once, and I think it was worth it. It helped me build a culture one cannot get from Internet, I read books that stimulated my imagination and also books that gave me information or perspective I never considered (ex: some books about China, Iran, Hong Kong and Russia). I learned so much from the books, much more than what I will be able to experience myself. Now I find myself reading a lot about technology and less fiction, mostly because after you read the top 10-20 books in each area it is hard to find something interesting that you did not already read.


I am a fan of both worlds - I spend a good amount of time watching conference videos on youtube and reading articles and I also like reading books. What I like about books is that they put everything in context way better than a short article and/or youtube videos (just think about the difference between a book and movie made after it). Another advantage of well written books is that by providing the context they give you time to think about a possible solution or reflect on a similar real situation before giving you a solution. The information sticks with you better this way in my opinion.


The problem is not what you know you don’t know, but the things you don’t know that you don’t know.

The solution I have found to this problem is to discuss with other people or read books. Internet almost works as a echo-chamber some times.


I am not sure how to answer your question because different things work for different people.

For myself, I like eBooks because it is easy to occasionally hilight especially useful or inspiring bits of text, then months or years later, I can review a book by just looking at the stuff I hilighted and this triggers my memory.

Also, some books really have inspired me (e.g., reading Bertram Raphael’s Mind Inside of Matter changed the whole course of my career) and it just makes me feel good to have the really important books on my book shelf.

Also, don’t forget to use your local library for both physical books and you can check out eBooks.


Are coffee shops worth it?

I have had less than 6 cups of coffee in my life, and probably less than 5.

Growing up in the suburbs, I assumed that coffee was a necessity.

I spend most of my day drinking tea, browsing the soda aisle at the convenience store, and shopping for caffeine pills.

Up until recently, I didn't think I was missing out. In fact, I wondered why there were all these coffee shops around. But recently I've started to notice that there are people in the coffee shops. Am I missing something by sticking to tea? Isn't all caffeine the same? I don't even like coffee, why are there all these cafes?

Am I wrong? Am I missing out?


I was a developer for about 5 years before I looked in a book for an answer on how to do something in a language I’d been using for years. Then I saw something else I didn’t know. And something else.

Ended up reading the whole thing and now, whenever I want to really learn a new topic or language I always go to a book for depth and understanding.

As a side effect, as I’ve gotten older I’ve found that history books are fascinating in the same way. Most people have very little understanding of the context around the history they know. It’s truly more interesting reading history than fiction in my opinion.


Ignore the fact if its good or bad to read books. Comments here advocating one way or the other are relative to their experience. Think why do you read slowly and why do you think reading a book is different then reading online. My relationship with reading the books completely changed after i heard naval’s podcast. This article explains it in brief. Podcast link is inside

https://hackernoon.com/everything-i-knew-about-reading-was-w...


Tldr:

“Everyone I know is stuck on some book. I’m sure you’re stuck on some book right now. It’s page 332, you can’t go on any further but you know you should finish the book, so what do you do? You give up reading books for a while. That for me was a tragedy, because I grew up on books, and then I switched to blogs and then I switched to Twitter and Facebook, and then I realized I wasn’t really learning anything, I was just taking little dopamine snacks all day long.” — Naval Ravikant

“we’re taught from a young age that books are something you finish, books are sacred. When you go to school and you’re assigned to read a book, you have to finish the book…” — Naval Ravikant


Reading a book for me is an incredible slow process. I can only really focus on reading if it is the first thing I do when I wake up.

Wake up, make a coffee, and then sit and read for a bit. I can tolerate about 20 minutes before I start to get restless and need to do something else.

If I have exposed my brain to some high stimulating environment. Like browsing the internet, or even just heading out. It is game over. I can't concentrate. I end up constantly getting distracted.

I think I need to be bored/ in a low stimulating environment to read physical books.

Having said that I do listen to audiobooks just fine.


Most of your books in your must read are... self improvement? The field of self improvement non fiction is widely regarded to be filled with fluff and extra words for little content and purpose. They are the equivalent of listicles and blog post spam.

You can do better.

Books are one of the greatest human achievements. The internet was supposed to be the worlds largest library but that promise has failed.

For a moment, by analogy, do you think you can get 80% of the experience of your fave 2 hour movie by watching every single 5-10 minute review of it? If that sounds absurd, then so does your post to me.


If I am wanting to know the best way to do X using framework or library or language Y, I absolutely go to the internet. If I'm wanting to see how to do bookbinding techniques for a certain knot, video is easier to follow than books, actually.

But, if I'm wanting to concentrate on a topic for a substantial amount of time, then the fact that I'm holding a paper book instead of sitting in front of a screen, helps me to stay on task. The limitations of paper are their strength, there. So, if you want to engage with a topic in depth, read a (paper) book.


* Read fiction. Start with a genre that interests you.

* Books only feel like a big time investment because you are not used to read a single thing for more than 20 minutes. If you read for one hour each day, you should be able to finish a book in a week (on average). People often greatly over-estimate the amount of time they actually read (an ebook reader will tell you the hard truth).

* It is normal to forget lots of things you read. That's ok.

* Don't spend hours on GoodReads/Amazon/etc. to decide what to read. Just start reading.

* Don't hesitate to drop books you don't like.


A related question is whether you should read “electronic books” (e.g. E-readers) vs. physical books. I’m part of the bridge generation that grew up with only physical books but then everything went digital, and I find that so far, I can’t replace the act of physically reading a book with the digital equivalent, it just doesn’t feel the same.

Are there people here who only use e-readers and prefer that for functional reasons, above and beyond the efficiency aspect of less trees, less weight, etc.?

And are there any suggestions of decent e-readers that aren’t made by Amazon?


I read a lot and I use both ebooks and physical books. I'm pretty happy with my Kobo e-reader. The screen is perfect for text even in the sun, the back lighting means I can read in the dark, and I can move between reading on the Kobo, my iPad, and my Win10 box. Books with photos are better on the iPad, though. Also, the kobo has no advertising.


on the time investment: "Ramit's Book-Buying Rule: If you're "thinking about" buying a book, just buy it. Don't waste 5 secs debating. Even 1 idea makes it worth it."


I disagree. Most non-fiction isn’t worth the book. That one idea can often be learned in a more interesting and faster way by watching a good talk by the author. By “not wasting five seconds” to consider if the book is worth it, you’re potentially wasting hours of your life (and some money) on a dud.


I find the act of reading a book from start to finish over a period of time is a good deal. There is definite progress toward a goal, you generally learn something and books are portable and generally cheap.

It's also a decent way of exploring something without distraction and to a guided level of depth. Usually by the end of it you have a feel on how deep you want to continue and what aspects you don't understand. Depth vs breadth is usually more easily traded off each other after you've read one or more books on the subject.


Not all books are good.

Your learning comes from the experiences of your life. Reading a good book is like learning someone else’s life.

...That’s why a truly great fiction book may be worth 100x a truly great non-fiction book.


I agree with your first few points, but I've never encountered a fiction book that I thought was greater than the best non-fiction. Surely, opinions differ but can you name a few (perhaps unusual) fiction books that make the 100x mark?

I'm open to being convinced.


Not the OP, but I can name a few.

I found Anna Karenina, or Crime and Punishment 100x better than all non-fiction books I ever read.


Thanks, I'll check them out.


Books from major publishers typically undergo a merciless editing process that can take something pretty good and make it exceptionally clear, memorable, and entertaining.

This rarely happens for online content, which I suspect is one reason I retain so little of what I've read online: it just wasn't that great.

Echoing a couple of others: pick up whatever book looks fun or entertaining to you. No judgement.

Developing a habit of reading books should be the real goal.

The "best" book is whichever one you'll actually read.


It seems like you're frame of reference for everything is about lists of things that have been recommended to you for some reason, whether it's online content or books that you've gotta read.

Just throw that out, erase your list of stuff, and go to a bookstore or a library and pick something up. Some books will catch you, some won't. You wouldn't very well deny going to a movie with friends because you can find the synopsis online and that's more efficient.


It depends.

From my perspective, reading a book has a different quality. In general, you spend more time on a subject and the content is often a bit deeper than online articles.

On the other hand, if you want to learn some skill, you need to practice it and for programming, it is a lot easier to practice it while you sit in front of a computer ;-)

So asking if books are worth it, is like asking if the internet is worth it. There are good pages and bad ones and similarly, there are incredible books and boring ones.


Books are definitely worth it, but what worries me is how little patience I have to sit down and read one when I can get everything through a fire hose on the Internet.


I got advice on reading long time ago that helped me a lot: "Start reading what you like until you start liking to read". And yes, books are the best source of any information that has to be digested by you. Its very personal journey not biased by other who might digested this for you (like blogs or podcasts). Its important to learn how to understand and digest things rather than consume and reproduce thoughts of others.


Are books worth it? Absolutely. I avoid anything superficial (e.g. tweets, facebook posts, brief journalistic articles). I enjoy long (2+ hr) podcasts and books because a good book can give a complex subject its due nuance and depth. I mostly read non-fiction and I'm looking for things that will change my worldview or will teach me something important, and for this I need to invest in a book-length treatment of the subject.


There were books before the internet, and they do not go obsolete so they will outlast anything on the internet.

Books can really belong to you rather than a hardware device.


If your reading list consists mostly of self-improvement books I don't think you're missing out, and I think you're wise to continue getting summaries of that content online. Books in that genre are typically filled with irrelevant fluff and anecdotes to fill pages -- I avoid such books.

Only content cannot replace good fiction however, so you will need to use books or an e-reader if you have an interest in that.


If reading books were easy, everyone would do it. Put another wy, reading books is a subtle way to seperating yourself from the masses. Mind you, I'm not suggesting you be elitist about it. Only that books are like using your gym membership; a healthy workout for your brain.

As for what to read, me thinks your over-thinking it. Just read. Read what you like, otherwise you're less likely to stick with the habit.


> I spend most of my day reading online articles/conversations, watching videos, and listening to podcasts. I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list on GoodReads, but almost never bother to read any.

You’re wasting your life and rotting your brain. Get a hobby, friends or just go outside once in a while. Also “self improvement” books are all a scam.


Yes. Find the top 10 most popular books by century read those. Never read anything where the author is still alive.

At the very least read Ben Franklins autobiography.


Here's is a useful categorization of nonfiction books into three kinds: narrative, tree, and branch. The "tree" books are the most enlightening and worth reading to have your perspective shifted and grown.

https://commoncog.com/blog/the-3-kinds-of-non-fiction-book/


I just started reading books again in the last couple of years and I think it’s definitely worth it.

My recommendation is that you start with a physical book and not an ebook or audio book. It might test your attention span at first, but it’s the best way to get your focus back and you’ll find that your reading speed and comprehension will start to improve. Also, it’s nice not having to charge them ;)


Books are wonderful. There's value in online articles and conversations, but you are likely depriving yourself of a few layers of nuance and enjoyment. No time to start like the present.

Step one: get a library card, and then download the app they provide to access books on your tablets and phone. Then power move find the option to look for "Skip the Line" or equivalent to get a list of books other people are waiting months to read in a queue. Thank me later.

Step two: start listening to audiobooks. You'll start at 1x speed and then gradually move up to 2x, depending on the type of book you're listening to and whether the narrator has an accent. I get through a book every two days by listening during my morning prep, when I'm walking or biking. You will find yourself slowing down to finish chapters in no time. Audiobooks are incredible. There are haters; they are wrong.

I recommend switching up between fiction and non-fiction, otherwise I get exhausted. I like business books (Shoedog by Phil Knight, or The Hard Thing About Hard Things) and books about behavioural psychology; Thinking, Fast and Slow is excellent, so is anything by Malcolm Gladwell. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari are both great. Authors like Dan Ariely and the Steves that wrote Freakonomics.

Lots of audiobooks are pleasurable in a special way because they are read by the author. For example, literally every book by David Sedaris is best enjoyed when read by David Sedaris. This is also true of good biographies; Failure Is An Option by H. Jon Benjamin will get you kicked out of a restaurant because you'll be laughing so hard.

Fiction is a really personal realm, but I prefer sci-fi and some fantasy. I read Cryptonomicon in my early 20s and loved it, but listening to it in my early 40s was a transcendant joy. Don't be scared by the runtime - you won't want it to end. Other authors I happen to enjoy very much include David Mitchell (Thousand Autumns or Bone Clocks FTW), Cory Doctorow (Makers, Walkaway), Blake Crouch (Recursion), Daniel Suarez (Influx, Delta-V, Daemon), Robin Sloan (Sourdough, Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore).

Just to wrap up and repeat what has no doubt been said elsewhere in the thread, fiction in particular is the gateway to empathy and imagination. Reading is a muscle; it gets easier and then it gets addictive. There's a reason people keep doing it, unlike yoga. ;)


I am a fan of Goodreads and their yearly reading challenges. I’ve got about 250 books on my to read and, due to the social nature of the platform, can get new recommendations from my network.

One tip I’ve found is that, for non-fiction, if the average rating is 3.75 or higher, it’s going to be good. I’m prejudice against books lower than that and often cull before I read.

That tip doesn’t seem to apply to fiction.


Start reading a few pages from this book; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9778945-the-shallows

I was looking for an answer to the very same question. This book, kept me hooked and gave me an answer. Try it out, just few pages, and see if it does same to you.


I’ve read about 60% of this book, but didn’t feel it got anywhere after the first chapters. So let me ask the question for this book specifically, is it worth reading in full, or did it get its important points across after the first chapters?


I'm a photography enthusiast and hardcopy photography books is A must. Period. I mean books that display the works of the photographers. Sure you can find some of them on Flickr, Instagram, etc. But to study the complete work, gotta buy the books.

For the rest, I'm fine with digital books. Take no physical space, can be easily read on phone/tablets.

To sum it up: for me, yes they are worth.


Regarding the photography books, how does a complete digital archive of a photographer's works compare to a physical book of the same content? Would you still prefer the physical book in that scenario?


Many people think that you really need to see a photo printed to get the whole experience. Seeing it in a screen isn’t the same. I suspect resolution is part of the problem.


Unless the digital archive is well captioned, I’d say a book is much better learning the context of a photo and the photographer.


I was just shown a cookbook that absolutely blew my mind. It explains the effects that each ingredient has on the food and how they interact with each other chemically. It seems like one would get a supremely good understanding of what's going on as you cook and otherwise prepare the food. I don't think I'd be able to find anything as good as it online.


The Food Lab?


I can't remember exactly, but I believe it was one of the "Cook's Illustrated" series of books:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/cook%27s+illustrated

A really thick, textbook-sized one.


Reading ability don't stop at the level where everybody agrees that you can read. You can develop it much more. If you read very little and read short pieces in the internet, you may never develop it full.

First you should practice it with something relatively easy before you dwell into classics and must read. Read a lot whatever you want, quality does not matter.


I suggest reading for fun. Find some good fiction, and just read it for pleasure. Long-form fiction will never be obsolete, either in print or on a device.

(If you like sci-fi, I suggest starting with Issac Asimov's foundation series.)

Oh, don't waste your time with self-help books. They're mostly garbage written by people trying to justify their over-inflated ego.


Yes, if you care primarily about skimming the surface of things, collecting ideas you can bring up in conversation and being "up to date," books are totally overrated. Content aggregators fill that role much better. But if you actually want to get back into reading as a hobby I would recommend starting with some easy-to-read fiction.


I've a small bag of thoughts on this:

- Whether it's books, videos, short-form articles, long-form articles, academic papers or podcasts, it's about searching for good information and positive stimulation. Both of these criteria are subjective.

- How you search and filter is also highly personal. It might be that your needs are such that the content you find in those mediums you listed are ideal for you.

- For me, people who write books and people who do videos/articles/podcasts are often not the same people, and I tend to be more interested in what the book writing people have to say.

- Videos/articles/podcasts present first-hand ideas far less often. The opposite is true: authors of interesting and original ideas often elect to convey them through books. Again, subjective.

- If an idea is novel enough, short-form mediums like those you listed are not enough to convey it. A book (or rather its length compared to e.g. article) allows the author to explore and swim around in his ideas. You need that for innovative ideas. Noam Chomsky said that at the time (1960s or 70s) how much time you got to present your idea on TV -- 5 minutes -- was not enough to change a person's opinion, so the medium itself framed the discourse. Same applies to all mediums. It pays to be mindful of that.

- A good book is much better than a good series or film. HBO's Game of Thrones versus GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose versus the recent series. Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series versus Netflix's Altered Carbon. Same goes for non-fiction.

- I'm a lover of film, but I turned to books because there's only so many good movies, but there's orders of magnitude more good books. Same goes for fiction and non-fiction.

- If you're looking for stimulation, rather than technical information, a book lasts much longer. I've stretched out reading some book series for years and it was awesome.

- If you don't enjoy a book, don't read it. Don't hope that it will get better or that it will have been worth it. Odds are stacked against it. I regret that when I started getting into books way back when I forced myself to read even those I didn't immediately like; I now know to give a book a serious 30-60 minutes and if my gut says no that's that. Reading takes time so spend it enjoying yourself. This applies to technical reading too.


I read books for entertainment, even non fiction and technical. I don't believe that I have to spend every waking moment improving myself. If I benefit from books, it's because every once in a while, disparate things from disparate books click together in my brain. "Chance favors the prepared mind."


Is it worth visiting the Sistine Chapel or going to the Louvre or the Hermitage? Who knows!

But it is completely different from seeing pictures of them.

What books are worth it? Hmmm. Depends. But some are very much so.

Is The Art of Computer Programming worth it? Is little Rudin worth it? Is the “Feynman lectures on Physics” worth it? Is “The Ides of March” worth it?

Depends.


Written book content is so dramatically different than online content.

The single fact that books have to be reviewed, edited, and published takes on a whole new world of quality and information.

Personally, I don't even bother with ebooks due to the lack of creditability in the quality of information and writing.

So, yes they are.


I would suggest you read this before you pass a final judgement on books : https://www.amazon.com/Reader-Come-Home-Reading-Digital/dp/0...


Yes, but I recommend combining book reading with another time-consuming "unplugged" activity: camping in nature.

Turn in early, and read a book by flashlight in your tent for a few hours, preferably with no rainfly and the Milky Way visible through a mesh top. Kill two birds with one stone.


A non-fiction book provides a set of ideas from multiple perspectives. It's unlikely that you'll remember a concept as soon as it's laid out but when reading, which is essentially engaging in a written discussion with the author, it's much more likely to sink in.


This question better posed as "Are any books worth it?", a much easier one to answer, then if yes it naturally follows with "Which books are worth it?", and I am sure there are several heuristics available to help approximate solutions to this third question.


I would say that reading non-fiction books/ebooks is a waste of time if not actively dog-earing and annotating pages.

Reading a book front to back, committing the important stuff to memory, and leaving the book unmarked, is a fantasy as far as I'm concerned.


Have you considered audio books? Doesn't work that well for many(/most?) technical books, but it's great for fiction, and easy to pair with a busy life.

I listen to tons of audio books while walking, commuting to work, doing chores at home, etc.


To be fair, an audio ‘book’ is no longer a book - in a very important sense. Reading is not a strictly linear process, while listening (to a recording) most certainly is. (And no pictures.)


I like to read many books; I think it is good. When I am not working on computer, I can read a book. This can be sometimes in my own home, or sometimes in library, etc. Sometimes I will have something on the computer but would prefer a book.


Unlike content on the internet, whose links can die for a myriad of reasons, physical books are always with you. I intentionally make a distinction between physical books and e-book options, where sometimes you have the book on subscription.


Well-written books like K&R or the GO-Lang book by Google are much better than their online/kindle versions. The only problem with books is their weight.

Plus, reading a book on a tablet or reading a physical book - who looks smarter? :)


>Growing up with the Internet, I always assumed that everything could be found for free online. I spend most of my day reading online articles/conversations, watching videos, and listening to podcasts. I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list on GoodReads, but almost never bother to read any. I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations, YouTube videos, CliffsNotes, podcasts, Reddit posts/comments, blog articles, etc.

Why read books when you can have a shallow understanding of everything through internet posts?

Why learn anything from millennia of human experience or get to see the perspective of others through literature when you can watch YouTube?

Why try to get the subtler side of things, when you can read a PowerPoint / cliff notes style "good parts"?


High quality long-form writing that requires focus, patience, work and though to both write and to read/understand is worth it. Books are more likely to fall in that category than what you listed, but not exclusively.


Pros of long written form:

- more in-depth content about a topic

- presents a structured approach

- can make you think about problems you didn't know you had (vs googling for a problem you have right now)

Cons of long written form:

- usually not up to date (some topics are less affected by this than others)

- you have to pay


I have the same problem - I'm trying out these apps - Blinkist and getAbstract that basically summarise books into 10 min reads. My experience with them so far is that the material has been condensed a bit too much.


Definitely: yes. I try often to research something I remember I have read online. I am almost always disappointed. I think it is not even because it does not exist online, but it is just so hard to find through google.


Also, audiobooks are an excellent way to get into reading books, especially for fiction and especially those with awesome narration. Don't let anyone tell you that listening to a book isn't reading it.


Whatever that list of 1000 must-reads books, I would include "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, and "A General Theory of Love" by Thomas Lewis et al.


About 95% of books are essentially trash. But the the other 5% is very worth reading.

What books offer is a deep dive into a subject your interested in without distractions, while online content is optimized for short attention span and serving ads.

For example, you can spend an hour watching a documentary on the battle of Stalingrad. Or, you can spend an hour reading Beevor's "Stalingrad" and learn 50 times as much, and you'll gain a far greater understanding of it. If you want to learn even more, you can dive into Glantz's trilogy on Stalingrad. You'll never find any of that in any documentary.

Or, if you're into politics and wonder how LBJ managed to manipulate a hostile Congress into passing his Civil Rights bill, check out Caro's incredible quadrilogy on LBJ.

If you want to know about Rockefeller beyond the glib soundbites on the internet, try Chernow's "Titan".


Hey Walter, I'd love some more book recommendations from you. Maybe some sort of favorite lists even? Thanks!


I really should do a list, but here's a few more:

"Nothing Like It In The World" Stephen Ambrose The men who built the transcontinental railroad 1863-1869

"The Pity of War" Niall Ferguson Explaining World War 1

"Steve Jobs" Walter Isaacson

"The Wright Brothers as Engineers" Quentin Wald

"With the Old Breed" Eugene Sledge

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" Richard Feynman

"Small Wonder" Walter Nelson The amazing story of the Volkswagen Beetle.

"Masters of Doom" David Kushner

"Reach for the Sky" Paul Brickhill


Thanks a bunch!


There was something my AP literature teacher told us when someone asked why literary analysis would ever be necessary; he said something along the lines of: “math and physics might be more valuable in the job market, but if you’re ever depressed or your soul needs nourishment you’re far more likely to reach for classic literature than the math textbook.” 5 years later and I find a lot more peace and joy in pondering the topics literature is focused on; love, death, life, purpose, war, compared to sifting thru the endless news on hacker news.

Literature and the great novels have consistent themes that are unending in their search for answers, and often this evokes a deeper level of thought compared to the internet.

That said, when I do watch tv I try to stick to artistic movies or something I can learn from. Recently I watched Come and See, an excellent movie about Nazis in Belaruse. After watching it I thought this movie deserves a literary analysis of its own.


I have a hard time remembering everything I read. There's an app for that called Readwise! It emails you highlights you've made previously. It also has some advanced features.


For me there is nothing like reading a good story. And good stories are timeless. On the contrary, tech, money, billionaire's thoughts... they age fast.

So lately i'm wondering, is HN worth it?


If you have the patience for podcasts you have the patience for audiobooks. A substantial difference between the two is the typical amount of effort in creating what you’re hearing.


The feeling of cracking open an epic fiction novel, smelling it, reading, enjoying it, and finishing it is like eating a steak and having sex at the same time. So there's that.


Books are probably the only way to expose you to multiple nuances on the your personal and professional framing/narrative for both personal life and professional narrative.


Some positives of books:

Books are widely vetted but it is difficult to find quality online content. Books work your long form attention but much online content is self contained and shallow.


Try audio books. I've just started, and more average one a week (many self help, though they aren't all good). Give your eyes a rest is sometimes necessary


I would say fiction is really worth it.

You can learn so much by reading classical fictional work (Tolstoï, Flaubert, or whatever) about humanity.

As we say, a reader lives a thousand lives.


I don't know. Is the symphony worth it?

Let's say you never saw a baseball game before in your life. You know nothing of baseball. You come to visit me, so you and I go out to the baseball game.

It would make no sense at all. Who are these people? What's the stick for? Does everybody get to run at the same time? Why do they keep changing around so much?

I, on the other hand, would be fascinated, enthralled. Each player has a backstory, the history of these teams playing is involved and dramatic. And did you believe those calls? It was robbery!

It's not the baseball game, the game is the same for both of us. It's the preparation and expectations that define our differences.

Books are a particular form of artistic expression. For fiction at least, I would argue that they involve a physical object you manipulate in various ways to hear a story conveyed by an author. It's an experience. You have a special reading place, you might have a favorite beverage, there are things you expect from various genres, and so on.

E-books and online reading are a separate art form, at least in my experience. For instance, the average video viewer only watches a few seconds. Content online has been optimizing around realtime reader stats for many years now. It's a separate art with its own separate genres.

I would argue that there are certain things you can experience from a symphony that you can't from a music streaming service. But it's not for everybody. Without the background and preparation, without the context, it just seems so much of a waste of time. And perhaps it is for you. It's for you to decide.

The only thing I'd add is to not make the mistake of confusing art with information. The net primarily exists to move information around. Art primarily exists to be experienced. They sound the same, but they're not. A good author can convey feelings, thoughts, and opinions to you in a book that you'd never get from a thousand wikipedia articles or blog entries.

tl;dr not everything collapses down to a tl;dr


If you get information from Reddit you deserve your ignorance. Books are worth it, and more generally paid content will give you higher quality information than free content. Nutrition is one area highly susceptible to this paid/unpaid information imbalance. The best information from doctors is in books, not online. For example most people aren't even aware of the _idea_ that saturated fat and cholesterol are healthy (which we've known for 20 years) because they learn from the lowest common denominator (like Reddit).


Try short stories. There are all sorts: PK Dick Beyond Lies the Wub, Autofac, to Nabokov Signs and Symbols, Chekhov the Duel, to HP Lovecraft.


You can be fine with looking at a few pictures and some wikipedia pages, but it is not comparable to making a real trip. Books are worth it.


Reading comprehension and speed comes with practice. Before habitually reading I'd have the problem of things not sticking.


omgs... just read about what books do to your brain... and you will know, its not about getting short notes, its about letting your mind experience a deep and beautiful journey - world and stories is not just about facts and summarizations :) if ur not sure where to start pick some fantasy or sci fi or adventure and let your neurons build up


I wonder what your background is? And to answer your question, I think you are missing a whole dimension in your life...


a lot of good comments here and I'd like to add some book suggestions here. You could start with some high-quality classics such as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius or other philosophy books such as from Epictetus or Seneca and see for yourself how much wisdom you can get out of these books.


I think you're viewing books and online content as entirely equivalent media forms; which would be much the same as treating movies and theater as equivalent content - they're adjacent, and provide similar material, but don't meet the same ends and their method of consumption are wildly different.

True, long form reading is also a skill that can be built up, and that skill even varies from topic to topic. Anybody that's done any academic reading (a.k.a. reading through dense academic journals and papers) will tell you it's a learned skill that is vastly different from either non-fiction or fiction reading. I can easily pound my way through a 1000 page book from Neal Stephenson in a few nights, but I need weeks to dig into a single paper in Category Theory, Non-linear Systems, or Control Theory; and it's because reading those academically isn't a skill I've built up yet.

And while it's true that much of the synopsis information on a topic can be found online, and you can get the details on Grapes of Wrath from piles of YouTube'ers and CliffsNotes; there is detail and meaning that you may take away from that book that you wouldn't find in those short reviews (they're great for school reports in a pinch, but not great for actual contextualization). So, in all, it also depends on what you're reading for.

And that brings me to my last and probably most important point, "What you're reading for." I read something like Stephen King for enjoyment, plain and simple, there isn't some meaning of life that will probably be gleaned from it. I have a friend that reads piles of "bodice rippers" for enjoyment, they read a lot of other things, but that's their junk food reading. I read various pop-science or pop-psychology or pop-history type books for a mix of enjoyment and seeing if I want to dig deeper on the subjects they're covering; and they can be better (and sometimes way worse) at conveying interesting points on a topic than a quick few articles online. I read academic journals to further my education and keep up with new things coming out in my fields of interest. And like most of us, of course I plow through online content, news, the Twittersphere, and bloggers I follow for many of these same reasons.

So it's honestly up to, and on you, for the reason you read books (or don't). Reading of any kind is a learned skill, and can atrophy in the same way your muscles will when you stop going to the gym - so if you want to read books, go for it; if you don't don't; but just like going to the gym, don't let the first few weeks/months/years/decades/lifetimes of soreness stop you from the goal you're interested in.


Personally for fiction movies and video games don’t match the amazement I can experience with a book.


Almost all non-fiction books are garbage. But like the best ideas get surfaced in blog posts and videos, the best books get cited over and over again. Read those.

I try to filter out anything published in the past 5-10 years. There are definitely fad books.

Some books people talk around but don’t cite because they are so famous, like taking about Marxism instead of Das Capital or Darwinism instead of the Origin of Species. It is often worth reading the books that shook the world in your lifetime.


Really important & useful ideas require hundreds of pages to express.


This is an excerpt from one of Seneca's essays which might convince you of the merit in books:

Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They annex every age to their own; all the years that have gone before them are an addition to their store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious fashioners of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other men's labours we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrested from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our betters?

But we may fairly say that they alone are engaged in the true duties of life who shall wish to have Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus, as their most intimate friends every day. No one of these will be "not at home," no one of these will fail to have his visitor leave more happy and more devoted to himself than when he came, no one of these will allow anyone to leave him with empty hands; all mortals can meet with them by night or by day.

No one of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die; no one of these will wear out your years, but each will add his own years to yours; conversations with no one of these will bring you peril, the friendship of none will endanger your life, the courting of none will tax your purse. From them you will take whatever you wish; it will be no fault of theirs if you do not draw the utmost that you can desire. What happiness, what a fair old age awaits him who has offered himself as a client to these! He will have friends from whom he may seek counsel on matters great and small, whom he may consult every day about himself, from whom he may hear truth without insult, praise without flattery, and after whose likeness he may fashion himself.

We are wont to say that it was not in our power to choose the parents who fell to our lot, that they have been given to men by chance; yet we may be the sons of whomsoever we will. Households there are of noblest intellects; choose the one into which you wish to be adopted; you will inherit not merely their name, but even their property, which there will be no need to guard in a mean or niggardly spirit; the more persons you share it with, the greater it will become. These will open to you the path to immortality, and will raise you to a height from which no one is cast down. This is the only way of prolonging mortality—nay, of turning it into immortality. Honours, monuments, all that ambition has commanded by decrees or reared in works of stone, quickly sink to ruin; there is nothing that the lapse of time does not tear down and remove. But the works which philosophy has consecrated cannot be harmed; no age will destroy them, no age reduce them; the following and each succeeding age will but increase the reverence for them, since envy works upon what is close at hand, and things that are far off we are more free to admire. The life of the philosopher, therefore, has wide range, and he is not confined by the same bounds that shut others in. He alone is freed from the limitations of the human race; all ages serve him as if a god. Has some time passed by? This he embraces by recollection. Is time present? This he uses. Is it still to come? This he anticipates. He makes his life long by combining all times into one.


Yes because a kindle or a physical book is less damaging to the eyes.


1. books without internet 2. internet without books

I'd pick 1.


Might want to look into an app called Readwise.


Go hang out at your local library for a day.


Read books published before the internet.


tl;dr: yes

First let me address the time investment angle. Not every hour is the same. There are active hours when I'm creating something, having conversations, actively learning. There are passive hours when I'm consuming content - watching movies or YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, reading books. An hour spent reading a book is not an hour not spent learning a new ML technique. It's an hour not spent watching TV. Once you realize that, you stop feeling guilty.

Now back to the main subject. Reading Cliff's notes and comments will give you some idea of what's in a book, but it will be by definition incomplete, and likely biased. A good example is George Orwell's 1984. You need to read the entire book to understand the very last sentence. It is very powerful, but if you skip the book and just read it out of context it won't have the same effect. You may think you understand what the book is about, but that understanding will be rather shallow.

The biggest problem with books is that, like everywhere else, 90+% is crap and it's not easy to tell which books you'll like. Recommendations don't work well because they depend on people. You won't necessarily like a book I liked. So effectively you're on your own as far as discovery goes.


tl;dr Yes. Books are worth it.

For the vast majority of my life, I didn’t read any books. Reading for me is a painfully boring experience. I simply lack the ability to read and comprehend at a speed that keeps me engaged.

Then, I realized I assimilate information very differently based on the medium. For me, math is a very visual thing. Graphs and plots make mathematical concepts immediately understandable. For general learning, hearing someone talk about a topic is most effective for me. This is when I decided to give audiobooks a go. This has been transformational for me.

Any good audiobook app will allow for faster playback. I’ve trained myself to listen to books at 2x speed (or faster). This is easily 5x the speed I would comprehend the material if I physically read it. So it’s super effective for me. I listen to these books in my car during my commute. Audiobooks convert my commute from a time waster into probably the most valuable time I have in my day.

So why are books worth it? For me, books end up performing like the repetitive learning system of Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/). A good book is somewhat repetitive as it goes deep on a focus area. Spending 10+ hours over the period of a week or so consuming a topic and having time for my brain to stew on it is incredible. I can’t get this from pod casts or blog posts and other online content.

I only listen to non-fiction books, typically on topics around human psychology, business, and topics I hope to give me new insights.

Bottom line: books are worth it because they offer depth that I can’t get anywhere else. That depth is the value.


All your assumptions are super wrong, especially that one about how everything can be found for free online

Like you don’t even know that books have to be digitized.

Or that part how magically the most salient and important points will rise up in natural conversation, which is just like what?

Also, this thing bout books being 90% fluff. That’s the biggest giveaway of a non-teaser. How do you even recognize what fluff is? You wrote 4 paragraphs worth of it

Like basically, this is just dunning kruger


The definitive answer is "it depends on you, are they?"

I know that isn't helpful but lets unpack a number of things from your question and address them separately.

First lets talk about skill. You said "I read slowly and I don't remember everything I read either."

In my experience most people don't remember everything they read, but they do remember the "big points" that a book was trying to make. I say this to reassure you to not get hung up on how much you retain, you can always re-read the book and get more out of it. But the other part was you said you "Read slowly."

Reading is a skill, like bicycle riding or playing the piano, or shooting baskets in basketball. The more you practice it the better it gets. A strategy I used with my kids and with folks who are new to reading is to find books that are not too challenging to read, and are engaging which means you want to read them. Science fiction stories, mysteries, any of a number of categories of fiction meet the bill. Go to your nearest library and ask a librarian for some suggestions on things to read that have good stories. Ask for skill ranges from early reader to college level. Check them out, read them all, and make notes of the ones that were interesting, the ones that weren't, the easy ones to read and the hard ones to read. No need to write a book report just write down "Read '1001 Arabian Nights', found it entertaining but kind of boring." or what ever your take was on the book. Since you aren't "learning" from these books, just practicing your reading skill, you should not be anxious if don't remember all of the details or even who the main characters were. Go back to the library and give your take on the books to them and ask them to help with picking out 5 or 6 more. Rinse and repeat.

What this does is it hones your sense of what you find "fun" to read. And when it's fun, just like video games, there isn't really a question of where does the time come from. But let's talk about time for a minute.

You called out that books were a "big time investment." Which is true, it is one way to invest your time. What are your other time investments? Have you done the experiment where you journal how you spend time every day for a week? Doing that will give you insight into what you are spending your time on now and give you an idea of what you are "investing" in. Reading will develop your vocabulary, sense of humor, conversation skills, knowledge, and mental acuity. That is what you get by investing in reading books, compare that to what you are getting out of your current investments and perhaps that will inform your choice on how much time you might spend. Also it is useful to remember that you can start and stop reading easily, carrying a book on your commute (if you aren't driving) is an easy way to get extra value out of your time, you are both going or coming from work and you are improving your reading skills! bonus!

Then there is this: "I always assumed that everything could be found for free online." This isn't ever going to be true. Not the 'free' or 'online' part, the found part. While most information ends up online, either legally, quasi-legally, or illegally, finding it is becoming exponentially harder as various forces work to monetize, hide, or discredit it. Having worked at a search engine that indexed billions of nominally "good" web sites I can tell you that our experience was that 99.999% of it was crap. Finding the good stuff is really really hard and getting harder. And it moves so finding it a second time can be just as hard.

The bulk of the things you want to know can be found already written, in books, by someone who spent time collecting the information, verifying its veracity, writing it up, having an editor help them rewrite it for clarity and having a reference department check it for accuracy. You can check those things out at a library for free. You can buy them for small change at rummage sales and yard sales, and you can share them with others by swapping books.

What I've found as I've gotten older is that books for me fall into three categories, entertainment, working knowledge, and reference knowledge. I found the "Dune" series by Frank Herbert very entertaining and keep a copy on my book shelf. I have a copy of "The Art of Electronics" with post-it "flags" at sections I often refer to as part of my working knowledge set. And I've digitized (scanned into OCR'd PDF files) dozens of text books which I think of as my "reference" set. I use a simple search engine to look up specific things in those books.

Bottom line: Work with a librarian at your local library to beef up your reading skills and ability to use a library. Then use those skills to read books that make you feel happy or more useful or more knowledgeable. You may find, like I did, that reading is more fun that watching television or playing video games. Or you may not. Again, it's a question only you can answer.


> I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list on GoodReads, but almost never bother to read any.

> The last few books I read were mostly filled with fluff, anecdotes, stories, jokes, and trivialities.

> I thought that online content was roughly equivalent to 80% of what I'd get from reading actual books for 20% of the effort.

For self improvement and pop-business books, it's more like you can get 99% of the value from 5% of the effort by reading about the book, or skimming it, rather than reading it closely.

> Are books worth it?

You need to know what this "it" is first. I don't mean that flippantly. Do many people find reading books useful or enriching or valuable? Oh, yes, certainly. Now: worth what? To you? Are films worth "it"? Are Casablanca, The Seventh Seal, the Up documentary series, Manos: The Hands of Fate, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Mars Attacks!, and Debbie does Dallas, worth "it"? Are they all replaceable with a bunch of 5- to 15-minute Youtube videos?

> Is it more true for some fields than others?

Self-improvement, pop-business/leadership books, and generally anything written to sell consulting services (there's a lot of that in both those categories) are regarded as kinda jokes. If you're looking there for wisdom you're combing the desert for a pearl.

> Is it more true for older books?

The filter is that if a book is still considered good decades, centuries, or millennia after it was written, it very probably is good. Good books somtimes don't pass this filter (these are periodically rediscovered) for various reasons. But almost no bad or low-value books pass it.

> Isn't most of the information from books freely available online?

Not at all. Start studying any topic past the surface level and the only way you'll get any further "online" is buying or pirating ebooks. Keep digging—not even that far—and you'll find some that do not exist in digital form, not even on Library Genesis. If you want to seriously learn about a topic, pick up a good academic book on it, then follow up on all the books they (very probably) mention in their introduction as other major works on the topic, and maybe also the books that book directly credits as references. Often this is a faster and more accurate way to learn what the expert consensus of "foundational" works in a topic is than trying to find that out online, let alone trying to learn the information contained in those works purely online, without books (usually impossible).

> Am I missing out?

What is "it"?

> One issue for me is that books are a very big time investment. I read very slowly and I don't remember everything I read either.

Take notes.

> Even if I wanted to read books, I just don't know which ones I should start with, out of the 1000 "must-read" books in my reading list.

Stop. Pick, like, five that seem really important or that you just most want to read. Aim for variety, don't pick five all on the same topic. Ignore the rest until you're done. Don't even think about them. If you're not going to finish five there's no damn point in maintaining and stressing out over a list of 1,000. They'll still be there when you've finished your five.

One further note: as hinted at by the movie comparison above, reading a book is a process and that process is part of the effect of the book. The time it takes, the curation or generation of material by one author or editor or a team of same working together, the focus and intention of the creators, these matter. Reading 200 blog posts is not the same experience as reading a book, even if they mostly cover the same territory. A tree can become boards, but boards cannot become a tree.


Try Kurt Vonnegut.

He’s not the GOAT, but his abbreviated style lends easily to folks who prefer short form content.


I will not pretend that reading is easy. I cannot appreciate your difficulty. I am eager to read. I read voraciously. What number you've read in your life, I consume in a year. I should, perhaps, regard you as a marathon runner would regard a couch potato looking to get into the sport of running.

I have this to say: I will _never_ reach the bottom of books' wellspring of value. I have not, yet reached diminishing marginal returns. Every book I read makes the next one more valuable.

You don't, however, have to read as much as I do to gain the benefit. My whole life, every year has brought me a handful of life-altering, mind-blowing new books.

That being said, I have put down many bad ones. Do not be afraid to quit a boring book. There are too many to read. There are so many more out there. Skip to the next one.

> I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations.

I don't.

> I even find myself reading the comments and not reading the article most of the time.

Me, too. Books are way different, however. Articles too often, in my experience, couch the _news_ in many paragraphs of exposition, and background context. I skim them looking for the _novel_ information. Not so, with books, which I read in order to _augment_ my contextual, background understanding.

Time spent absorbed in a book allows for deeper re-wiring of one's basic precepts. An article may help you navigate your current mental models with agility, but only a book offers us the substantial choice of retaining or replacing them.

> Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books. -- bell hooks

Novels, likewise, afford a world-altering subsumption of reality. Our imaginations are massively powerful--or else, to put it another way, our connection to material reality is tenuous, and can be all-too-easily shifted to project ourselves into fantasies. A visit to alternate realms--even as mundane as contemporary fiction set in a different town--grants us opportunities that short forms don't. I have only rarely been swept away by a reddit comment, and felt myself to have visited another place. (One example might be the roadside in "Today You, Tomorrow me.")

I think you're reading in the wrong genre. There are dozens, and truly their boundaries are fluid, but self-help is perhaps the most vapid.

You are missing out.

I would recommend Bujold's "The Curse of Chalion" as a fantastic, mature novel with fantasy elements, or Stephenson's "Snowcrash" for a colorful adventure not without gravitas. If you're trying to gain non-fiction information, I would recommend Galeano's "Open Veins of Latin America," CrimethInc's "No Wall They Can Build," or Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets."

In the realm of pure intellectual pursuit, Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" will not disappoint.


I'm 39 years old and books have been an integral part of how I define myself as a human. I grew up with books and they've been a constant presence in my life regardless of what I was doing. It is my personal belief that there is no substitute for good books. By books I don't mean the paper medium, I mean long form narrative that you can absorb and revisit on your own time, it could be eBooks, paper books, audio books are a bit trickier for me but they do fit my own personal criteria mentioned above.

What I think you've been missing the most is the experience of immersing yourself in a book. The way you've been consuming content which is with small nuggets of information is very common today. Most people these days (regardless of age) don't want to invest too much time into content "reading", everyone want the TL;DR, the bullet lists, the KPIs, and in my opinion that this prevents many people to actually discover what is enjoyable about books.

You'll seldom read a book in a single reading session (unless it is very small). If the book is good, it will resurface in your mind, you'll ponder about it between reading sessions. You'll not be engaged with it only when you're reading it, you'll be with it through the whole experience and also after it as it makes an impression in you. By being able to control how the content flows (which is not the same with a movie) you can stop to think about stuff without losing content (this is trickier with audiobooks). You can come back again over paragraphs that made an impact on you and study them to understand why. You an take notes to help you reason about stuff. Lets imagine that take you two weeks to read a book in a casual pace, all that knowledge and content will be with you. The curiosity to know more about it, to get back reading, to learn what happens. That lasts longer, it is a more involved process than consuming video. A good lenghty book might change how you think as you spend a long time with it.

Humans are moulded by the stories they tell and by those they've been told. Books in one form or another have been with us through millennia. They've formed us and will keep doing that in the future in whatever form they evolve to. For me, it is the different of diving deep into something and how wetting your feet in some shallow puddle.

Another important aspect in favour of consuming more books is that there is a chance of reading content by the original author in the original form (or something close to it), which makes it for a more intimate conversation between you and the author. Just stop and think with me for a second, a book is a conversation between you and the author across time and space. You might be reading a long gone author in their original words, getting to know their style, how they thought, what they valued. This is different than absorbing content via a third party which is telling you what they've thought about it, which is the case of podcasts (which I love too, they are awesome but I prefer books). Getting your content from "primary sources" is very different than via third, fourth or even fifth parties.

Even though we produce a lot of audiovisual content on the internet, it doesn't encompasses the whole spectrum offered by books. Yes there are a gazillion videos about Sun Tzu Art of War but there is a lot of longform content that is not popular or clickbaity which doesn't surface through the algorithms used by those social networks we tend to use to discover new stuff. Content from books trickle very slowly to the digital realm. It is like an iceberg, you get a lot of content above the water but unless you're prepared to dive into it, you be missing a ton of stuff. Only very popular information is moved to the internet in a way that it appears easily to people browsing social networks or searching. There are many good stuff that is very hard to find online unless you really know what you're looking for, which makes discovery of such content a bit hard.

I'd urge you to engage with books not because millionaires do it, but because you want to do it. While it is true that some fields move too fast and you'll get the best content about them online. For a lot of other fields, books are better.


Certainly, the majority of books are not worth your time; the same is of course true of YouTube videos, podcasts, blog posts, or any media you may consume. But the best books do offer things you can't get elsewhere.

Crucially, reading book is not just about information intake! Really great books don't just teach you things, they open you up to new ways of thinking, expose new corners of the universe and of experience, stretch your mind, and so on.

If you're reading books filled with "fluff" — read better books! If a book bores you, find a different one! Reading a great book should be a joy.

It's true that most books don't age well — but the converse to this is that books that have been around for a long time and are still popular are usually well-known for good reasons; they've endured on their merits for far longer than any bestsellers of the decade.

Challenge: don't read any more self help books. Instead, read books on education, economics, science, technology, nature, history. Read epics, read science fiction, read poetry.

Do some research on the areas that most interest you, and take time to find the very best books you can find — based on Amazon/Goodreads reviews, suggestions from friends, best-of lists, whatever — and pick just a few to spend time with. And keep in mind it's always a better use of your time to read 10 really amazing books than 100 average ones; take your time and have fun :)

I recently took up a Twitter challenge to post 100 opinions about books and reading, and I wrote a lot about the concept of the "antilibrary" — basically, the value of knowing about books even if you don't necessarily read them, and getting good at curating your reading list. You may find some of this useful for how to think about reading:

https://twitter.com/schlagetown/status/1206268052498780160

A handful of these book thoughts that may be particularly relevant here:

1. Every curious person should be a serious reader. Ever serious reader should build an antilibrary.

(Essential vocab for this thread: your antilibrary = all the books you know about but have not read, designating a sort of potential energy for learning / knowledge / reading)

‪2. An antilibrary should exist in both physical form (books on your shelves; books browsed but unpurchased at your favorite bookstores) and virtual form (in digital lists; in tweets and reviews scanned; in your memory).‬

‪3. An antilibrary should have many levels: books you have an urgent desire to read, books you definitely want to read someday, books you find intriguing but may never read, books you've lost interest in entirely‬

‪Categorize not only by topic but by priority / importance / status‬

‪8. We should all be more aware of (& deliberately apply) the many different levels of reading that exist — the spectrum from close reading to skimming a book quickly for major themes / ideas.‬

‪Different books + different contexts demand different approaches for optimal reading.‬

‪17. There aren't that many truly great books you definitely need to read.‬

‪While there are infinitely more good books than you can ever read in a lifetime, you can probably get to a surprisingly high portion of those that are both excellent & a good match for you personally.‬

‪24. Building your "read really big books" muscle is helpful for practicing sustained attention & deep engagement. Living with a text for months on end, whether a particular story or set of ideas, creates a special type of relationship!‬

45. You should have a "non-reading practice" — being intentional about not-reading certain books (just as some authors should not-write certain books!)

Abandon more books. Browse many; read few. Choose to engage w/ books & their ideas outside the text itself.

52. Best books I've read in the last year: Underland—Robert Macfarlane How to Do Nothing—Jenny Odell Go Ahead in the Rain—Hanif Abdurraqib Daemon Voices—Philip Pullman Carceral Capitalism—Jackie Wang So Many Books—Gabriel Zaid The Collected Schizophrenias—Esmé Weijun Wang

53. Best books I've read in the last 10 years: The Moonstone—Wilkie Collins Moby Dick—Melville Infinite Jest—DFW Pilgrim at Tinker Creek—Dillard Impro—Johnstone Time and the Art of Living—Grudin Le Ton beau de Marot—Hofstadter Death and Life of Great American Cities—Jacobs

72. There are many books we should know about for reasons other than the story or info (etc.) of the text itself.

Reasons like: important cultural context, influence on future books, significance to people you love… Such books are prime candidates for antilibrary inclusion!


Yes, Definitely, books are worth it. I was at the same place as of you ~3 years ago, doubting the value of reading books - so, I can speak to it.

tl;dr: For breadth, online reading is good enough; while for depth and study, books tend to be the way to go. No matter which medium(book/audiobook/summaries), reading more is always better.

I can think of at least 4 major differences between online content and books. 1. Comprehensiveness 2. Background research 3. Test of time 4. Focus and grounding

Let me explain.

1. Most of the online content is "designed" to be consumed in < 10 minutes. So, it assumes fundamentals or ignores details otherwise are critical to the topic. This is useful for quickly grasping a concept, but if you want to go deeper, books will give you better context

2. "92% of the online content is designed to prove a point" (Above statement is a made-up one, and I have no idea what percentage of the online content is made up)

A lot of content available online are valuable and accurate. At the same time, the credibility of online content is questionable, while books tend to be more research-oriented. A person has spent at least 6 months to put together a book, and multiple people spend hours to get it out. Books tend to be more linked to the credibility of the author. Paul Graham's essays (http://paulgraham.com/articles.html), for example, are gems and it doesn't matter if it is consumed as a book or a blog - it does contain valuable content.

3. Books age well than online content - some of the timeless classics still stay relevant in the current decade or century. More people review them, so more crowdsourced opinions. This might sound contrary to the belief, but this is something I've observed over time.

4. Most importantly, you may devour the internet for a whole day, and learn a bunch of things but the very next day, because everything was so unstructured, you'd tend to lose clarity and only a few things stick. This is more pertinent to some people than others. So, consuming or learning about new concepts systematically through a book will improve the stickiness of the ideas and be more structured while thinking about it. Books, also tend to be more detailed with more examples to put things in context, to which you can relate to. It gives you time to think and organize. Think about it as taking a structured course, rather than learning bits and pieces from here and there.

Now, the Pareto Principle (80/20) does apply and reading 20% will give you general context on 80%. But more often than not, on most subjects, 20% does contain in-depth information you'll miss out on.

Listing a few books I recommend, which I believe are worth reading

[1] The Science of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon [2] Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter [3] Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan Peterson [4] Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari [5] A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle [6] Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [7] Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche [8] The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann [9] The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell [10] Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran


I think it really depends on whether you want to advance the breadth or depth of your knowledge.

If you want to go breadth, meaning touch a little bit of here and there, yes you can rely on the internet. There are many non-fiction books can help you in this direction, but you do not have to read them.

But if you want to go depth in a particular field, I think you have to read at least some most important books in that field. I do not believe you can learn an advanced field, say quantum physics, by just watching youtube videos or reading online articles. The reason is that many in depth knowledge are only presented in books.

For programming, I think yes you can definitely become a programmer by learning online. But then again, if you want to be an expert in a particular field of programming, you have to read books in that field. Even for data mining and AI those kind of stuff, there are good online courses, but I don't believe online materials can cover important details as in books.

The most cutting edge materials are usually presented in research papers or conference presentations.


I love reading, however, I am sad to say, most books are NOT worth "it" (being read).

There are many, many books in the world. Only very few of them are good. I don't know the percentages - perhaps 0.001%%

The good books are worth reading, but they are difficult to find.

As for information from web sites vs information from books: some books are just the content from web sites blown up into book format. So there is no general rule of "books are better than web sites", either.

Even though I am a fast reader (I think), I find many books too wordy.


Way too many generalizations on the medium, socioeconomic attainment, quality, etc.

Yes, many books have high-quality information that is not digitized and not accessible without reading them. This is true for older books and newer books.

It is more true in fields like finance, tax, legal and hyper local historical accounts.

It is also true in the software field as well. For example, a programming book by one author can still expose you to elegant efficient techniques that would never be found on someone's blog or on sites like stackoverflow where the community consensus masquerades as better.

In finance and economics there are financial products and circumstances in older books that you might not have heard of, which can become advantageous in upcoming "new" market condition that now only you recognize.

In tax, you no longer have to be one of the citizens angry that wealthy people have accountants to perceive obscure advantages, because you can already perceive them.

Sometimes the exposure to concepts in books can make your internet searches more specific so that you find where these daily conversations occur, or new communities where people take the knowledge to new modern levels. Compared to being in the same communities you are now and assuming you aren't missing anything.


Math books are a solid investment and do not become obsolete. Looking at a digital math book is inconvenient, since learning from a math book often requires flipping between pages and the index. That is why a physical math book is more convenient. For many math topics, books from 50 or 100 years ago will also provide useful insights that are still entirely valid and true today and into the future. Books from non-math genres may not age as well, because the information may become obsolete or outdated. However, for pure math books this is not the case, which makes physical math books a good investment that could last.


There’s nothing magical or sacred about a particular medium, but the internet doesn’t contain all human knowledge, it doesn’t contain much of past human knowledge and it rarely preserves knowledge through archival. This is concerning because future generations may give up on history and/or give up on preservation/archival.

i. Try short books at first.

ii. Take frequent breaks (short and sometimes device-free days) from glowing screens to reduce dopamine dependency.

iii. Listen to audio book versions.

iv. Read to understand, not to get to the end by skimming.

v. Try epaper ebook readers that are less stimulating and more like books. This can be an easier way to make books portable and compact.

Here’s a short one, read or listen to Smedley Butler’s book [0, 1].

0. ebook version: https://books.google.com/books?id=trl4DwAAQBAJ&printsec=fron...

1. audio book version: https://archive.org/details/war_is_a_racket_1903_librivox/wa...

Another book I would recommend is Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1542) which has been translated into English as A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. It’s a must read to know the scale of the Spanish rape, pillaging and genocide of native American and imported African slaves.

I also go to libraries to see what they have for physical and electronic checkout. And, frequent the torrent sites to look for video courses and good book / audiobook packs. It also takes curiosity and critical thinking to actively seek out, discover and evaluate works of others.

I would also recommend reading important and banned books like Mein Kampf, Das Kapital, The Bible, The Quran, The Communist Manifesto, Heart of Darkness, Brave New World, Catch-22, Crime and Punishment, Howl, Fahrenheit 451, The Satanic Verses, Ulysses, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and so on. Especially important is to re-read them every 10-20 years, because your outlook on life will change with the seasons of life, you will find these works appear different than you remembered and you will get more out of them because you have more life experiences.


Books are also dangerous. Because the amount of effort you have to invest in a book is quite large people tend to develop biases around a book.

It's a strange phenomena. The more effort someone invests in something the higher their bias towards it. Much is the same for books.

I know of no human who has read every detail of the books war and peace or Moby dick with their own free will and came out saying that the plot was total crap. It's literally because the energy placed into finishing the book is so high that the bias is even higher.

Movie adaptations of said books will likely have terrible plots even when the plots are literally identical to the books. The only thing missing from the movies is your bias.

Note that this does not mean I am saying books are bad. They do offer things that online articles fail to offer. Just wanted to note that almost no one mentioned the dark side of investing so much time into books.


The answer should be apparent from the signal-to-noise of OP. He merely needed to ask "Are books worth the time?" to get his point across, but instead couched it in 350 extra words. Books are similarly inefficient. Verbosity is an existential threat.


You also were too verbose...

    OP Q: Books worth it?
    Answer: Nah.
Or maybe we can remove all the vowels and connecting verbs and extraneous adjectives and still get your point across...

    "Ans shld b obv frm SvN. Shldv ax "books worth time?" Books take 2 mch time 4 same pt."
Yup, you were definitely still too inefficient...


Similarly, one must only count how much time is used for self-maintenance tasks such as eating, pooping and sleeping to conclude that living isn't worth it.


You can get the content of most films from a two-minute read of a plot summary. Is it thus pointless to watch films?


Yes


Reading books is honestly overrated. Especially popular non-fiction.

If you are reading for pleasure, then so long as you are pleased, any number is fine.

If you read for knowledge, you should be able to see if you have any chances of applying the knowledge to your life. Unused knowledge is at best, useless, at worst, dangerous (too many valueless thoughts taking by brain CPU cycles). I used to read ~30 books a year. Only read 10 books last year. This year it might even be fewer. But each and every book I read adds value to the fields I am focused on (history, religion and a little bit of non, pop sci fiction).


Books are just another form of entertainment, and I wouldn't think of them as much more than that. Yes, there may be value in reading some books, and many of them contain interesting facts and opinions, but the truth is that reading lots of books won't raise your IQ anymore than watching TV.

It's become fashionable to boast or brag about how many books you read, but this is nothing more than signalling. Nobody really cares which books you've read, except it may be interesting to discuss books to help others find new ones that may interest them.

I personally have read many, many books over the years and I've found that I tend to forget most of the information shortly after reading them, with some exceptions. For example, I tend to find it easy to retain primary themes (i.e., I've read a number of books about stoicism and I have hung on to the core tenets of the philosophy but I don't remember the specific details).

These days I've caved into consuming audiobooks, mostly because they're extremely convenient. I like to listen to books while taking walks, which allows me to accomplish 2 things: 1) get some exercise, and 2) "read" a book. It's not really an additional time investment because I like to take walks anyway regardless of the book.


I've heard the best predictor of performance on IQ tests is number of books read.

In my experience, reading a book forces me to conceptualize the content in a way watching TV and listening to audio does not. It is also faster than watching and listening. I think this has improved my conceptual thinking ability, as well as being able to articulate my thoughts, and expanded the number of concepts I can use in my thinking.

My general experience is well read people seem to generally be more open minded and better able to understand other points of view. On the other hand, in the social media world of sound bites and text snippets, the ability to have a logically coherent extended discussion seems to be diminishing.

Yes, it does sound like reading books can improve a person's mind, and that can sound elitist, but it may well be true.


I think reading books correlates with IQ, but it does not increase it; it provides information and stimulate imagination and analytical thinking, but there is no known method to increase IQ.


Why do you claim there is no known method to increase IQ? I can definitely tell a difference in my cognitive performance based on certain practices. For instance, the better I can hold a concept entirely in my head, the better and more rapidly I can reason about it. During a period I was memorizing and solving Soduku entirely in my head, and that produced a noticeable improvement in my memory capability.

On the other hand, the less sleep I get, if I am out of shape, feeling depressed, etc. all have a negative impact on my cognitive performance.

So, while there may be individualized hard limits on cognitive performance, it also seems clearly the case that an individual's cognitive performance can be greatly improved through various habits. Think of it akin to athletic training. Some people are born with an athletic predisposition, but everyone still benefits from working out, training and diet. Hard to see why the same cannot be true for cognitive performance.

Now, taking the topic of reading vs more sensory media such as TV, the former require more internal cognitive processing to understand, whereas the latter minimize the amount of focus needed to consume the media. Based on my previous analysis, it would make sense that a reading habit would produce a higher cognitive performing individual than just consuming sensory media.


I don't claim that, I read some psychology stuff (my sister-in-law is also a psychologist, but I am not considering her as an argument). I think I also saw a few clips with Jordan Peterson telling the same; even if you don't agree with him on other matters, he is a respected professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto and he knows his stuff.


Huh I have heard the same before, and I don't know why there is such certainty. Similar to the claim bad eyesight cannot be fixed through exercises, which is not totally correct.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: