How to Read 2 Books a Week | Hacker News Reader

How to Read 2 Books a Week

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17 pointsgokul10x12 comments

I think most readers that decide reading books will lead to a better life are missing the point. I keep on reading about people that feel so proud that they read 1 or 2 books a week. When it comes to books for self-improvement it's not the number of books you read but how you apply what you read. It's many times better to read fewer books and apply what you learn rather than to read so many that you barely remember what was read and never get a chance to apply it in life.

Indeed, I often have to remind myself to read less and do more. You need experience to inform your reading. Plus, experience often imprints lessons on your mind more vividly than dry reading.

I feel the opposite. You need to develop a broad range of education on different life topics rather than obsessively implementing a small number of things. How much you implement from a smaller number of books is what I think would be useful for eg learning how to play guitar or invest better.

Non-paywalled link: https://outline.com/ZYBDsE

Summary:

* Force yourself to read everywhere

* But don't force it

* Buy a lot of books at once

* Read them all at once

* Remember stuff you read

I don't even know why I'm commenting on such a low-effort blog post. Ironically, I read a lot of self-help books as well and I realized that most of them are a sham, so I'm writing a book on ... well ... how to read self-help books.

Outline flat-out refuses to work on Firefox (Mobile) for me. Firefox Lite and Chrome(ium) works fine. Any idea why? Disabling all my addons and it still doesn't work.

I theorize that many self-help writers begin as people obsessed with process over end goal. After all, it's easier. Why master X when you can research the best ways to master X (without having done so) and summarize it? You then create a strange loop in which you are, say, productive about explaining productivity (but not productive at anything else). And then, you monetize it.

This isn’t just a pattern of self help books but i’ve noticed that most non fiction pop psychology or business books tend to follow this extremely tiresome pattern: 1. Start with a little biography for a chapter or so. 2. State your thesis, maybe earlier. 3. Make all of the chapters some principle or broken down element supporting the thesis. 4. Beat the reader over the head with case study after case study. This is great because it fills out what would’ve otherwise been a pamphlet into a real deal 300 page book. 5. Profit?

I used to look down on all of these summary companies and stuff like Blinkist but i totally get it now. People aren’t too lazy to read this stuff, it’s just not very important that you understand all of the filler.

Also. It’s quite telling whenever these kinds of speed reading goal setting articles get made they’re almost always using self help books. That works because of the points above. No one is ever speed reading War and Peace or East of Eden.

My two cents to add. Dont use a highlighter. Underline with a pen. Especially a good ink rich black pen. Not a cheap bic pen. Too many highlights annoy the hell out of the eyes. At least to me. And the older I get, the more it frustrates my vision and focus. Nice clean black lines looks more elegant in the long term compared to highlighter.

Can I just say that book fairs or second hand sales are great to get quite literally bucket load of books for really cheap.

Alternatively, get a Kindle reader (or use the Kindle App). With an Amazon account you can read the first chapter of (most) ebooks for free.

Which books? If one of them is The Critique of Pure Reason, or War and Peace, that's going to put a crimp in your throughput.

I’d summarize it as “first, find 10 hours per week, and read short books.”

TANSTAFL

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