HN Books @HNBooksMonth

In Mortimer Adler's _How to Read a Book_ (1972) [0], he tackles this idea by distinguishing between "words" and "terms." Chapter 8 is called "Coming to Terms With an Author" and it is essentially all about this idea of "improper nouns" but under a different name.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

Honestly, reading a book and knowing How to Read a Book is a skill.

I highly recommend this book for that reason: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

A much shorter answer: yes, it's possible. Before getting into a serious self-study of literature I highly recommend reading and studying this book first: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

Great question! In my fourth decade of life I’m finally figuring out the optimal way to do this myself. I’ve forgotten so so many books over the years that I supposedly read.

Read How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer Adler. (https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...) I’ve given this book to a bunch of people on my teams as it also helps with communicating ideas which is vital as a programmer.

The wikipedia page for it is a good place to get an overview of what it’s about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book

Since reading it I’ve been keeping a notebook, some people might call it a Commonplace Book, with interesting stuff from the book. I find that I get a lot more from books from the act of writing it down and then reading those notes later when I glance at them while looking something else up in the notebook.

One big big big thing I learned from the book is to not read a non-fiction book like it was a novel. There’s nothing wrong with skipping ahead and finding out what happens later, in fact you should absolutely skim the book first. I end up finishing a lot more books by doing this since so many books aren’t actually worth careful reading. I am able to systematically skim a book including the TOC and index and determine if it’s worth reading carefully. A lot of books are so sparse with ideas that you can get most of them through this method. Only the good books are worth going on to the second and third stages and only the great ones the fourth stage.

⬐ 8ytecoder

One of the reasons I love the kindle. I highlight my favourite quotes and phrases regularly and then after I finish the book I summarise it into an essay.

For instructional books I make a bullet point list of key learnings.

⬐ iNate2000

I annotate my Kindle books as well. But at least twice now, I've lost all my annotations because the publisher "updates" the book.

I'm sure that problem won't exist forever (and it doesn't exist for titles that are never updated). But it certainly reduces my trust in the platform. Which reduces how much I take advantage of it.

⬐ tspiteri

Automatic updates can be turned off.

Under Manage Your Content and Devices, Preferences, there is an Automatic Book Updates item which you can turn off. Then if you want you can update books individually, or not.

⬐ dfc

I had no idea updates could erase highlights. I apologise for being lazy but do you know if all updates will erase highlights?

⬐ robfitz

They do, yeah. As an author I'm desperate to get into a continuous deployment/iteration cycle for books, but the fact that kindle works this way really discourages it.

⬐ dominotw

This is primarily how i built my english vocabulary. Seeing words in context and connection makes them stick better.

⬐ qorrect

Wow this a game changer for me, did not know you could do this, thanks!

⬐ dfc

You didn't know you could highlight on the Kindle? Do you primarily use the Kindle web app? If you have an actual Kindle reader it sounds like you should read the manual in case you are missing some other nice features. I can't imagine using a Kindle without the highlighting or dictionary lookup.

⬐ qorrect

There's a manual ? I will read it, good call.

⬐ halvanta

Amazing advice! I use a Kobo reader because it can be used without registration (do a quick search engine search on how to do this), and I transfer my epub books via usb using rsync. Turns out you can edit the Kobo's config file and turn on a feature that will export your highlights and annotations to a text file on the Kobo's root:

https://www.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/7swz6v/exporting_high...

I never would have thought to look this up without reading your comment. Absolute game changer. Cheers!

⬐ SquishyPanda23

How to Read a Book is great, and so is the sarcastic response How to Read Two Books: http://scriptoriumdaily.com/how-to-read-two-books-erasmus-ad...

:)

⬐ dredmorbius

I'm considering writing How to Read Ten Thousand Books, as mentioned to a friend in a similar discussion earlier. Once I complete the preliminary research.

Adler's book is indeed highly recommended.

⬐ Gusmann

I would be the first one to read it, maybe you'd really do it? Because I have a lot of books around mu house which I started reading, one is 1/2 finished, the other 1/10 finished, then there's another one that I started reading and left somewhere at work etc... And I have no idea how to deal with it because it's really hard to concentrate on one book, but when I switch to the other I have to go a bit backwards in order to remember the idea.

⬐ dredmorbius

I'm at least half serious. The epigraph would of course com from Ecclesiastes.

An upshot is that you cannot in any meaningful sense read 10,000 books in a short period of time, though it's a tractable option over, say, a lifetime: 10,000 books in 60 years is 160 books a year, or about 14 a month. That's considering a new book every couple of days.

To which you could apply the techniques described in Adler's book. To add to that, you need some sort of information capture system that scales, such that you're aware of the books you've attempted to read, and what your quick-perusal impression was.

I'm also convinced that more information is useful only in a general sense. Information as with all else follows a Zipf or Power function fo significance and utility, both in area and time of impact. Much of what we are exposed to either doesn't concern much by subject, area, or time, with news being very high up on that list. News matters when current events have a high probability of impact on your life. The fact that newspaper readership in the US peaked during WWII, and has declined at a virtually constant rate ever since, has much to do with this. During the war, small events in faraway places could have a significant impact (and did). Since then ... not quite so much, and focus on individual events has proved largely less productive.

(Hrm: maybe the news is grossly misdesigned? That thought's occurred to me for quite some time.)

What you describe in terms of maintaining state and sense of place within a book is something I struggle with. The idea of learning and forgetting curves, and of paced repetition, should probably play into that. A key issue being "does this material warrant paced repetition?" Because if you've got to repeatedly process the information you hear, that's going to put a cap on what you can learn.

So, the idea of progressive reading not only of a given topic, but over the entire corpus is something you've got to consider. What's a reasonable progression through a set of works? Which is pretty close to saying "what is an effective pedagogy?"

The benefits of reading a wide range of works is that patterns, similarities, and patterns emerge. The disadvantage is that there's a great deal of repetition, and of course, a large amount of bullshit, some accidental, some intentional.

Not all bullshit is useless. Bullshit that's become culturally relevant and/or integrated is useful not because it's true, but because it explains and describes that culture. Reading with this in mind is useful, though also difficult.

And there's the problem of exposing yourself to repeated bullshit and/or toxicity. At a certain point that becomes damaging even when you're aware of it. The biggest problem with propaganda isn't that it's false, it's that it's effective even on those who create it. "Drinking your own Cool Aid" is a phrase because reasons, and some of the most harmful doctrines are harmful because their originators are fully convinced or swayed by them.

There's probably a rough structural outline of the work in these paragraphs, FWIW. Anything you'd add/remove/change?

⬐ Scarbutt

There is also a nice short guide http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf which looks similar in approach to the 500 page linked.

⬐ sureshjayaraman

This gives a nice, quick summary of different techniques!

⬐ philwelch

I feel like there's a bootstrapping issue here, though. What do I read in order to learn to read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler? Or do I merely read that book once, in order to learn the technique, before re-reading it?

⬐ tindleaj

I'm in the process of reading Adler's book now, and I've found it's pretty bootstrap-able. I've been able to apply the lessons as I go along, and I've even gone back to earlier sections and increased the "resolution" of my understanding so to speak by applying later techniques.

⬐ escapecharacter

Yeah this was my EXACT complaint. Hopefully there’s an audio book version, or a 1-800 number you can call to ask to have it explained to you.

⬐ ingve

There is an audio book version: How to Read a Book, narrated by Edward Holland [0]

[0] https://www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Read-a-Book-Audiobook/B003...

⬐ martin-adams

Sadly not available in the UK

⬐ yezooz

If you use audible.com, all you need to do is change the billing country to US. Suddenly all books previously unavailable can be purchased.

Country doesn't affect card payments in my case (Monzo) but worse case scenario you can use points.

⬐ martin-adams

Very interesting, thanks.

⬐ read_if_gay_

Hope that it’s designed to work even for people who don’t know how to read yet

⬐ sailfast

Pick a section of a book you like and do an “Adler read” on that section. Identify the main question, supporting points, and conclusion of each of those sections in the margins.

Short passages or a couple chapters can be really rewarding. “What is the author actually connecting this to?” “Are these questions being addressed one at a time, or too many at once” etc.

We used Adler as a starting point for a bunch of school books and did these as assignments - while it was painful it upped my game and brought so much more out of the book.

⬐ codetrotter

I’ve been thinking about something along these lines. One example might be that the book contains a lot of information that you already know. In that case, skimming through might tell you which chapters or sections to skip, instead of having to read lots of stuff that you already know, or worse yet, get discouraged by the repetition of things known to you and never finishing the book, thus missing out on the good stuff that was “hidden” in the later parts of the book.

But as of yet I tend to read books cover to cover and either finish them or give up on them along the way. But I do take notes about interesting things, and sometimes I do little experiments with them also. My notes are a bit lazy in that often my notes consist of taking a picture with my phone, but I categorize the photos into certain albums.

⬐ totalperspectiv

That book also totally changed how I read for the better.

I tend to have two books going at a time. One I read seriously, usually in the morning and take notes etc. The other is purely entertainment band is usually an evening or weekend mornings book.

⬐ sova

Regularly come back and flip through the notes you made, like what was most striking, it can weave a lot together even after days months or weeks have passed. Every book needs a notebook beside it to become the verbatim abridged version of what's valuable (at that particular time of reading).

⬐ ryan-allen

> One big big big thing I learned from the book is to not read a non-fiction book like it was a novel.

I did a double-take until I read 'non-fiction'. Yes, absolutely, I agree. Large non fiction books need to be approached strategically for time saving's sake.

Fiction on the other hand, I adore taking my time :)

⬐ 3pt14159

I lost my Commonplace Book with all my notes from my previous readings in a trip to a hospital. I'm still devastated even though I have a partial backup from photos I took before hand with my phone.

⬐ lallysingh

I'm sorry. I've found a Neo Smartpen (with tweaks) to help back up my notes.

⬐ axiom92

> One big big big thing I learned from the book is to not read a non-fiction book like it was a novel.

Do you mean to say: "is to read a non-fiction book like it was a novel"?

⬐ Stratoscope

No, the comment was suggesting to not read a non-fiction book like a novel.

When reading a novel, you wouldn't skim it and skip ahead to find out all the plot twists and surprise ending and spoil all the suspense and fun.

With a nonfiction book, you're not worried about plot spoilers. You want to learn from the book. So skimming through it to pick up some of the gist before reading it in detail is a fine idea.

⬐ axiom92

Oh ok! I skip through long-winded details in the novels all the time, hence the confusion. Thanks for the clarification!

⬐ frosted-flakes

In general, I agree, but this is not always true. Some non-fiction books read very much like fiction. An example that I recently finished is Endurance by Alfred Lansing, which tells the story of Ernest Shackleton's failed mission to cross Antarctica on foot in 1914 (they got stuck in the ice only a few miles from land and spent the next year and a half stuck drifting on the ice before making an escape attempt when they finally reached open water).

Lansing spent years doing research for this book, including interviewing all the living crew members, and it is 100% true. But it has a proper plotline, fantastic character development, and a very climactic and happy ending. Reading ahead won't exactly ruin the story (the basic points of the mission are commonly known anyway), but there's no advantage to doing so.

In other words, some non-fiction books are novels too, and they should be read like novels.

⬐ EForEndeavour

Your example is technically not fiction, but as you point out, its main purpose is to enthrall the reader with a compelling story, not to convey a large amount of dense information in the way that textbooks, manuals, and academic papers do.

If a reader wanted to extract and retain as much information as possible from Endurance (say, if they were studying it in school, or read it but found they didn't retain a lot of the key points), they would still benefit from skimming, skipping around, taking notes, and other advice provided in this post. This advice applies to anyone who wishes to extract and retain information and understanding from any given piece of text, fiction or non. Just don't spoil compelling stories for yourself unless you really want to.

⬐ guidoism

The opposite. Non-fiction books should be read in multiple passes, like a video encoder.

- First pass: Understand the structure, important words (from index), some interesting passages.

- Second pass: Read it all the way through, don't worry if you don't understand stuff

- Third pass: Look up stuff that you didn't understand from the previous pass and read it again in order to understand them.

- Four pass: Read it concurrently with other related books to try to truly understand the topic

⬐ Baeocystin

I would go so far as to say all books should be read in an iterative manner, fiction or not. Good stories will reveal previously-missed tidbits again & again as you explore the deeper structure of the work.

⬐ dredmorbius

Deep reading should be saved for books worth the effort.

There's far more written than you'll ever be able to read. The cost of discovery is a large impediment to that.

Skimming / scanning (contents, index, bibliography, intro/conclusion chapters) is part of the informational assessment. If the book holds up to that, keep digging into it. If not, set it down, and feel no guilt.

I'm reading a lot of material, though I'm not satisfied with my methods or progress. I've found Adler's book highly useful. The principle problem is that my interests have both breadth and depth sufficient that the volume of relevant material is enormous, and quality assessment is complicated. I'm doing the best I can.

⬐ Baeocystin

I should clarify- I fully agree with your assessment. Sturgeon's law holds true with books as much as anything, and there is plenty that can be tossed aside after only a cursory glance.

My point was aimed along the lines that if a book is worth reading once, you will benefit from rereading it at a future date.

⬐ dredmorbius

On that point I agree entirely.

What's impressed me is how much a book can change ... or was it me ... over time, as I've learned and been exposed to more things and experiences.

Some improve, some are less impressive.

⬐ starpilot

"How to Read a Book" prescribes reading a book 3-4 times. Just the sheer repetition will help you get more out of it.

⬐ spookybones

What does your commonplace book look like? Is it a tome you keep on your desk, or is it portable?

⬐ guidoism

I personally like the Baron Fig, it's exactly the same size as the iPad mini, so portable, but not pocketable. I actually keep two: one for scribbly notes and the other for my more thoughtful notes. Took me a while to get over making mistakes in the nice one, but I'm fine with it now and it doesn't hinder my writing.

⬐ pulkitsh1234

Not to sound rude, but how can one judge what idea one needs to see as 'important' while skimming through the book if they have no clue of what the book is about?

⬐ guidoism

Somebody wrote "Not to sound rude, but how can one judge what idea one needs to see as 'important' while skimming through the book if they have no clue of what the book is about?" and then deleted it. I'd still like to reply because it's a good question. Here goes...

That's a perfectly good question. I used to think that skimming was worthless, only something that people who didn't actually care about information did.

But if you think about how you are constantly judging the value of information everywhere throughout the entire day then you can see how we have to make some filtering decisions.

Systematic skimming is just another filter. If I'm going to dedicate 10 hours to reading the book carefully it makes sense to get an overview of the ground first. If the books I'm reading are from Alan Kay's list of greatest books you should read then I'm going to not worry so much about the filtering aspect of the skimming. If it's a shitty book with a catchy title in the business books section of the library I'm going to be much more skeptical and the filtering part of skimming is essential to not wasting time on crap.

Judge a book by its cover. Then judge it by its table of contents. Then judge it by some passages you read that looked interesting. Don't commit to a book until you've gotten a better feel for what's inside.

⬐ zwkrt

I like this methodology, it’s like you’re dating a book before deciding to commit!

⬐ philwelch

Indeed, that makes a lot of sense.

Also, while sometimes this could backfire, it's often useful to come to a book with some idea of what you want to get out of it and go digging for it specifically.

⬐ atmosx

Skimming and evaluating a book, chapter or paragraph quickly is a skill that can be acquired with practice.

⬐ Advaith

I recently started using kindle highlights along with https://readwise.io/ and it works like a charm!

⬐ mariushn

What do you think about https://booxia.wensia.com ?

⬐ bosie

Do you mind expanding how you use that service?

⬐ submeta

Thank you very much for that tip! Tried it, fell in love with it immediately. It imported my highlights from my Kindle and from my iBooks library and shows me my Highlights in a much better way than Amazon's web interface is able to do (https://lesen.amazon.de/notebook?ref_=kcr_notebook_lib)

Also, it allows me to export all of my highlights.

Finally it adds a gamification dimension, showing me random five hightlights from my books.

PS: Through this site I learned that my Kindle highlights reside in a in file called `My Clippings.txt` (in /Volumes/Kindle/documents/My Clippings.txt) This is something I always wanted to know, because I have many books I uploaded to my Kindle device via USB (so no clound sync available).

⬐ thisisit

What is the format of the 'My Clippings.txt' file? The reason I am asking is because I use Google Play Books most of the time. All highlights in Google Play Books is stored in Google Docs under "Highlights _Book_Name_" and I am wondering if readwise works for those.

⬐ tristanho

Hey there, Readwise founder here.

Unfortunately 'My Clippings.txt' is a narrowly (and honestly, pretty awfully) defined format that Kindle devices generate. So that won't work for Google Play Books.

That being said, we want to build a separate Google Play Books importing tool -- it's on our roadmap!

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

Consider pre-reading it first. If a book is hard, if it’s over you head, try going through the whole book w/o stopping on things you don’t understand (don’t fixate). In this way you’ll grasp the major points, ideas and themes. Only then read it carefully — you’ll understand better and get more out of the book.

It’s similar to progressive JPEG rendering. Your first pass is pre-processing resulting in fuzzy understanding of the whole that you then refine in the subsequent pass(es). Progressive way is more natural and effective.

I highly recommend reading Adler’s “How to Read a Book” [1]. This exactly the guide you want to read if you want to know how to learn well from books.

1. https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

⬐ toxicFork

Thank you for the suggestion, I will give it a try.

If anyone is interested in a deep dive on this topic, I highly recommend 'How to Read Book' by Adler and Doren. It is a fantastic how to on learning and understanding new ideas.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

⬐ organic_markov

Here's a nice summary of the algorithm: https://pastebin.com/wGFMM1pZ

The author mentions writing down a summary after every chapter in the book itself. The final notes are prepared from each chapter's annotations and handwritten summaries. If anyone is interested in reading to retain more, try How to Read a Book [1] by Charles Van Doren and Mortimer J. Adler. Reviews and summaries of the boook [2, 3].

[1] : https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

[2] : https://fourminutebooks.com/how-to-read-a-book-summary/

[3] : http://oxfordtutorials.com/How%20to%20Read%20a%20Book%20Outl...

How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/...

⬐ korbonits

This is such a good book. One of the few books I've re-read

The game changer for me was actually learning how to read a book. I no longer approach books the same way after having read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler [1]. Once you have a method down, you can go through books rather quickly and retain knowledge. My biggest epiphany is that you don't need to read a book in its entirety to know all that it has to say.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/...

⬐ adrift

Could you give a summary of what you learnt from it?

⬐ rvern

There is a good summary on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book.

⬐ tristanho

Yes! How to Read a Book is amazing. We spend so much of our lives reading, yet very rarely view it as a skill which we can develop, nor do we have goals for our reading other than to absorb as much information as possible.

One of my favorite ideas from the book is the idea of reading for "enlightenment":

"It is true, of course, that you should be able to remember what the author said as well as know what he meant. Being informed is prerequisite to being enlightened. The point, however, is not to stop at being informed."

You don't just want to memorize what an author said, you want to elevate your level of "understanding" to a point where you understand the topic nearly as well as the author does! With that as a goal, your focus quickly shifts from reading 100 books in a year to properly educating yourself.

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

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

When I read a textbook, a specification or an article or something technical that I consider important parts I use the Feynman Technique[0].

As from what the linked article says,

    The technique is simple:

        1. Get a piece of paper
        2. Write at the top the idea or process you want to understand
        3. Explain the idea, as if you were teaching it to someone else

    What’s crucial is that the third step will likely repeat some areas of the idea you already understand. However, eventually you’ll reach a stopping point where you can’t explain. That’s the precise gap in your understanding that you need to fill.

I used to repeatedly explain the idea to myself. At first I find it hard to recall though I don't feel discourage when I'm unable to hold it on my mind at first and just think that there are a few that can but once I train myself I'll eventually improve.

When reading blogs, HN comments, novels etc., I usually read it once just like I'm watching television or a movie.

I don't worry that I read slow since when I've found out that Donald Knuth also reads novels very slowly[1].

If you want a more systematic reading, there is a book[2] which has been mentioned often here in HN.

> Is there an app that you use?

I use org-mode for everything

[0] - http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/10/26/mastering-linear-algeb...

[1] - http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/retd.html

[2] - https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/...

"How to read a book" should be the first book gift you ever give. It changed my life. https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/...

It depends on your definition of "reading a book."

Wait, what?

I've been reading a book called, I kid you not, "How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading."

Adler and Doren identify four levels of reading:

1. Elementary: "What does the sentence say?" This is where speed can be gained

2. Inspectional: "What is the book about?" Best and most complete reading given a limited time. Not necessarily reading a book from front to back. Essentially systematic skimming.

3. Analytical: Best and most complete reading given unlimited time. For the sake of understanding.

4. Synoptical: Reading many books of the same subject at once, placing them in relation to one another, and constructing an analysis that may not be found in any of the books.

Amazon link for those interested: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/...

I highly recommend reading this book, of the same title: http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Intelligent-Touchstone/d...

It expounds on what is mentioned in the blog post, and it is something I really wish I had truly grasped when I was in college, but has helped immensely since then.

Some well-read fellows called Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren wrote a book called How to Read a Book.

It serves two useful purposes.

1. It provides a framework for thoroughly digesting important books.

2. It is a rich vein of humour for visiting friends to mine when they spot it on your book shelf.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712...

Isn't it somewhat paradoxically, that a teacher should ask for hack-how-to-learn recommendations?!

No offense meant. Just struck me. Being a teacher myself I know no one really knows the ultimate learning hacks.

Actually I'm in a similar process of brushing up my knowledge. For now I'm doing some meta reading:

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0671212095/

⬐ nekopa

No offense taken. I have just spent most of my time hacking how to teach, hence the way I have designed my own self-study course. But I realized that I need to look more on the student side in how I deal with the materials and organize it more. I think I know how to be a good student, but then I thought, what ways can I maybe hack this? So as always, I like to see what is out there, and see what people have already done or tried, before I start to re-invent the wheel.

That book looks interesting, how do you find it so far?

⬐ jonsen

I find How to Read a Book really promising. It seems like it will provide a solid framework for reading for really deep learning.

I found so far, that I'm not a bad reader. Apparently I already master several of the techniques described. But anyway I find it very valuable to become much more consciously aware of my own reading abilities. And I definitely expect to improve my abilities from the study of the book.

Also I find the arguments and supporting explanations in the book so far of distinct value.

Mortimer Adler wrote a wonderful book about reading, "How to Read a Book", that's still in print after 70 years. It changed my life by transforming my view of reading, and, consequently, how I read. It's like a very souped up version of this blog post. Link: http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712...

⬐ olliesaunders

I'm reading that right now. Well, I say reading, I really mean ignoring on my bedside-table. I did read some and now I don't want to subject myself to the boredom again. Although I can certainly confirm that it is full of good—possibly very good—information.

I suggest reading the classic "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712...

⬐ scorxn

I don't know how!

⬐ RevRal

Ah, everyone's favorite book to be a smartass about.

Great suggestion antpicnic. I consider this book to be the foundation of my higher education. Seriously, by not using the methods of this book, you'll always be a tier lower than your potential.

You may want to read How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712...

⬐ bitwize

The best part of How to Read a Book is that when you buy it you get a free book to practice with!

While I agree with your opinion of the submitted list, I feel your list is a bit unbalanced. Why only math, science and economics?

A few random suggestions:

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712...

Building a Bridge to the 18th Century by Neil Postman

http://www.amazon.com/Building-Bridge-18th-Century-Improve/d...

I would be more inclined to do this if the book is non-technical. When you commit to reading a technical book, you're committing yourself to more than just the time spent reading: you're committing yourself to the time spent applying and fully understanding what you read -- installing tools, tinkering with syntax, coding, and so on. I've got enough of that now.

With non-technical books (literature, history, quality-of-life), most of the time will be invested into actual reading, with a bit of pondering and maybe discussing. We can have a conversation right away, and there's still knowledge and insight to be gained.

Here are some non-technical books I'd like to read:

* How to Read a Book - http://amazon.com/dp/0671212095

* Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - http://amazon.com/dp/006124189X

* Liar's Poker - http://amazon.com/dp/0140143459

* Growing a Business - http://amazon.com/dp/0671671642

⬐ gruseom

Those last three are great suggestions (I don't know #1). #2 is a classic, but I've read it a couple of times. #3 I've been meaning to read for years. #4 I'm actually in the middle of right now (I think because tptacek recommended it here) and unlike the vast majority of business books, it's superb. It's also older (pre-internet) which is actually a good thing as it focuses one's attention on fundamentals.

⬐ Herring

"When you commit to reading a technical book, you're committing yourself to more than just the time spent reading: ..."

I wish more hackers took that attitude towards science books. Can't really get much out of a pop-physics book without solving problems.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone/dp/0671212095...

I read that for a high school english class, and it changed the way I read. It teaches you how to absorb more information in less time.

⬐ Alex3917

Which, I might add, is very much against speed reading.

⬐ yters

I'll second that. I haven't read the whole thing, but the multiple, deepening passes idea is key.