The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly(revolutiontalk.substack.com)
revolutiontalk.substack.com
The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly
https://revolutiontalk.substack.com/p/nonfiction
24 comments
You're being way too sophisticated with your analysis here.
By this standard I am a terribly unsophisticated reader. The majority of the books in my home I did not finish. I used to feel terribly guilty about it. Still do sometimes, but two things helped to ease my unease.
Firstly, I started reading short stories more than novels. A short story can usually be read in one sitting and no-one thinks a collection should be read cover to cover.
Secondly, I realized that most non-fiction is (a) badly written and (b) can be read in a non-linear fashion. Just scan the table of contents and dip into the chapters that catch your attention. Skim first and read closely only if convinced. Use the index for cross referencing. Take notes for extra points.
Oh, and read How To Read A Book, by Mortimer J. Adler.
Firstly, I started reading short stories more than novels. A short story can usually be read in one sitting and no-one thinks a collection should be read cover to cover.
Secondly, I realized that most non-fiction is (a) badly written and (b) can be read in a non-linear fashion. Just scan the table of contents and dip into the chapters that catch your attention. Skim first and read closely only if convinced. Use the index for cross referencing. Take notes for extra points.
Oh, and read How To Read A Book, by Mortimer J. Adler.
I am inclined to agree with you on your second point-reading non-fiction non-linearly. Also, what makes us feel guilty about the pile of unread/unfinished books is when we subscribe to 'number of books/period of time,' read as a metric.
If I have to add anything, I would say that an unsophisticated reader does not stand by the metric of counting the number of books he reads in a year.
If I have to add anything, I would say that an unsophisticated reader does not stand by the metric of counting the number of books he reads in a year.
Lovecraft's short stories are perfect to read at random, as they create a lore as a whole.
>As you read what you like, you end up liking to read. ...When reading becomes second nature, you read for knowledge and insights.
I found the premise of the article pretty odd. I enjoy learning, not necessarily reading. When I begin to learn a new topic, it's almost never that I'd rely on a single book. Most books assume certain prerequisites, and are written specifically to that level. But it is highly unlikely I'll have had the same exposure to every topic the book covers. Some I'll find too obscure and need a more basic explanation, and others I'll find too basic and either skip the section altogether, or find a more generalized review of the material. It is almost never that I read every page of a given book.
Granted, I do not read the types of books the article's author used as examples. I'm more likely to read books on topics like computer vision, or computational astronomy. And I don't restrict myself to reading, I'll use any material available like videos or on-line courses.
I found the premise of the article pretty odd. I enjoy learning, not necessarily reading. When I begin to learn a new topic, it's almost never that I'd rely on a single book. Most books assume certain prerequisites, and are written specifically to that level. But it is highly unlikely I'll have had the same exposure to every topic the book covers. Some I'll find too obscure and need a more basic explanation, and others I'll find too basic and either skip the section altogether, or find a more generalized review of the material. It is almost never that I read every page of a given book.
Granted, I do not read the types of books the article's author used as examples. I'm more likely to read books on topics like computer vision, or computational astronomy. And I don't restrict myself to reading, I'll use any material available like videos or on-line courses.
I like to have two books I'm actively reading at most times, typically one technical-ish book and one nontechnical-ish book. If I need more than two then probably I'm not actually interested enough in one of them and will just stop reading it altogether. I have a lot of books I've read 1% - 50% of and never finished, though coming back to one later isn't totally out of the question, it just goes back from my "reading right now" place to my shelf.
I've done something similar.
Various shades of technical. Textbooks, science books, history books, nonfiction written like novels.
Sometimes I have multiple of each category depending on my mood.
Various shades of technical. Textbooks, science books, history books, nonfiction written like novels.
Sometimes I have multiple of each category depending on my mood.
I have always done that. I don't like to read stuff that's too intellectually intense or stimulating in bed, so I opt for some sort of fiction or history. During the day I might read something like philosophy or technical/sciencey when I'm more awake. If something is especially mentally taxing I might opt for something lighter.
Doing this I might read up to four or five books at once, but always at least two. Reading should be fun and if you feel forced to read a certain book you'll be less inclined to do it, having options helps a lot.
Doing this I might read up to four or five books at once, but always at least two. Reading should be fun and if you feel forced to read a certain book you'll be less inclined to do it, having options helps a lot.
This has some interesting ideas but is too opinionated. I usually finish a book before starting a new one and usually only read one at a time. There are exceptions but none of it speaks to how much I love reading.
This was not at all what I thought it was about from the title. The TL;DR: You can read more than one book at a time on various subjects.
What I thought it was going to be about: When reading non-fiction (in particular) you don't have to read the book straight through. Since this is HN, take a book on your hot new language of choice that you're going to submit 5000 posts about here. If you're already a programmer, the first 4 chapters or so are likely pretty useless to you other than for a quick skim: Here's how you declare variable, functions, classes, traits, whatevers. Here's the syntax for various expressions and/or statements. Takes a day, at most and you may not read it straight through, just skip around looking at the examples, look at the text if it doesn't click, type up a few examples/test cases and see if you grok it. Then the next 6-50 chapters detail specific aspects of the language, maybe a standard library or how a particular tool or feature is used. You're already an experienced programmer, you grok their OO model (if they have one), but maybe it has a somewhat novel concurrency model. Jump to that chapter. Go backwards in the book if something in it doesn't make sense to the relevant sections.
This can work with most non-fiction depending on your level of familiarity with the base subject or the style it's written in. History books sometimes have a narrative structure that makes this harder. A math book may be written with a different enough notation that linear progress is more critical so you can understand the author. But even then, I was reading an astrophysics book earlier this year and I did exactly like I described above for programming except with more attention to the first 2 chapters (calculus and diff eq were ages ago for me) followed by skipping to chapters that discussed things I needed to know for work.
What I thought it was going to be about: When reading non-fiction (in particular) you don't have to read the book straight through. Since this is HN, take a book on your hot new language of choice that you're going to submit 5000 posts about here. If you're already a programmer, the first 4 chapters or so are likely pretty useless to you other than for a quick skim: Here's how you declare variable, functions, classes, traits, whatevers. Here's the syntax for various expressions and/or statements. Takes a day, at most and you may not read it straight through, just skip around looking at the examples, look at the text if it doesn't click, type up a few examples/test cases and see if you grok it. Then the next 6-50 chapters detail specific aspects of the language, maybe a standard library or how a particular tool or feature is used. You're already an experienced programmer, you grok their OO model (if they have one), but maybe it has a somewhat novel concurrency model. Jump to that chapter. Go backwards in the book if something in it doesn't make sense to the relevant sections.
This can work with most non-fiction depending on your level of familiarity with the base subject or the style it's written in. History books sometimes have a narrative structure that makes this harder. A math book may be written with a different enough notation that linear progress is more critical so you can understand the author. But even then, I was reading an astrophysics book earlier this year and I did exactly like I described above for programming except with more attention to the first 2 chapters (calculus and diff eq were ages ago for me) followed by skipping to chapters that discussed things I needed to know for work.
If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for work that requires astrophysics?
It sounds really interesting!
Satellite fleet management. Though presently I’m doing testing so the math helps to verify the software is doing the correct thing. Turnovers have me here out of necessity when I’d rather be on the software side of the house.
I'm confused why they used "unsophisticated" and "sophisticated" instead of simply linear/non-linear. It's also weird that the author suggests that everyone starts sophisticated and should become unsophisticated.
Good article otherwise. Loved the remark that we shouldn't strive for hitting the yearly quota and instead just enjoy reading.
Good article otherwise. Loved the remark that we shouldn't strive for hitting the yearly quota and instead just enjoy reading.
I read it as an attempt to be a little cheeky, or at least tongue-in-cheeky. Teasingly applying a mildly unflattering term to the behavior the writer actually thinks is good.
Shorter recommendation: read the chapters of non-fiction books in reverse order. Start with the end and work backwards. Authors tend to still be sounding out their main idea in the first few chapters, and the middle tends to be filler for publishers page count expectations.
Indulge them if you like, but with most authors, there are diminishing returns on your attention.
Indulge them if you like, but with most authors, there are diminishing returns on your attention.
This is interesting; I have a very different perception. In my experience the last few chapters are the ones where the author has decided they're done with their main premise and has gone out on a limb (which often breaks under them). I have any number of excellent non-fiction books that I've read voraciously until the last one or two chapters.
I'd considered that as well, and I'm wondering whether it's a time period thing. Post 1980's/90's and after the business book boom, I'd agree that the end is just summary because the short punch book form was really influential in publishing.
Your comment got me thinking. Mid-20th century and prior thinkers weren't edited the same way (hence all the doorstop books), and there was more cultural emphasis on intellectualism and literary flourish, a kind of auteur cult. It's these ones I'm referencing in my comment about skipping their sounding stuff out. Whereas I'd agree with your approach to anyone writing from about 1990 and after, arguably with the invention of "airport reads" and the mass market of people reading stuff on planes.
I'd even speculate we could probably chart the rise and fall of certain genres by trends in transportation. Viewed this way, it may not have been the internet that killed newspapers, it was a mix of downloadable podcasts and wireless plans. Car and office radio is still huge and it may have picked up the local advertising newspapers lost.
The fiction books that do well now are completely immersive, because the people reading them are committing binge level leisure time. The non-fiction books could be power point decks. The middlebrow market is a luxury and signalling good. The successful middle brow celebrity books that tell you what to think are basically blogs. TikTok and Twitter are the smoke breaks of our era, because everyone is always ready for service and to be interrupted.
Maybe the next great art stars will be creating art for self driving cars, where you can engage and not be entirely passive like radio, but just enough to leverage the distracted mental cycles of being driven around. The culture we consume is less about some intrinsic desirable property than an artifact of constraints on our time. Hmm...
Your comment got me thinking. Mid-20th century and prior thinkers weren't edited the same way (hence all the doorstop books), and there was more cultural emphasis on intellectualism and literary flourish, a kind of auteur cult. It's these ones I'm referencing in my comment about skipping their sounding stuff out. Whereas I'd agree with your approach to anyone writing from about 1990 and after, arguably with the invention of "airport reads" and the mass market of people reading stuff on planes.
I'd even speculate we could probably chart the rise and fall of certain genres by trends in transportation. Viewed this way, it may not have been the internet that killed newspapers, it was a mix of downloadable podcasts and wireless plans. Car and office radio is still huge and it may have picked up the local advertising newspapers lost.
The fiction books that do well now are completely immersive, because the people reading them are committing binge level leisure time. The non-fiction books could be power point decks. The middlebrow market is a luxury and signalling good. The successful middle brow celebrity books that tell you what to think are basically blogs. TikTok and Twitter are the smoke breaks of our era, because everyone is always ready for service and to be interrupted.
Maybe the next great art stars will be creating art for self driving cars, where you can engage and not be entirely passive like radio, but just enough to leverage the distracted mental cycles of being driven around. The culture we consume is less about some intrinsic desirable property than an artifact of constraints on our time. Hmm...
I think this is a personal preference. I always read for pleasure and have almost always read a single book at a time. Books for professional and immediate practical purposes aside, theoretically I have one fiction and one nonfiction book going at a time, but in practice I switch between them infrequently and usually finish one before switching to the other.
I think the author wants to say "read however you like," but he can't help adding, "and this is how you like it, so this is how you should do it," which, even if he's right about a particular person's preferences, is contrary to the message that you shouldn't worry about right and wrong ways to read, or worry about how other people think you should do it.
I think the author wants to say "read however you like," but he can't help adding, "and this is how you like it, so this is how you should do it," which, even if he's right about a particular person's preferences, is contrary to the message that you shouldn't worry about right and wrong ways to read, or worry about how other people think you should do it.
For me the biggest determinant of whether I read a book straight through or not is the medium. If I am reading on a phone or laptop, or even a kindle, chances are low I will read a book straight through.
However, if I have a physical paper book, then there is a much higher likelihood that I will read it straight through.
However, if I have a physical paper book, then there is a much higher likelihood that I will read it straight through.
"If you are not an unsophisticated reader, you truly do not enjoy reading."
Just... no. Don't tell me whether I enjoy reading based on your standards of how I do it. Your way is not the only way.
This is just an arrogant author who's not bringing any actual substance about the topic.
Just... no. Don't tell me whether I enjoy reading based on your standards of how I do it. Your way is not the only way.
This is just an arrogant author who's not bringing any actual substance about the topic.
For a better-written, funny account of the habit of reading many books at once, there is Joe Queenan's One for the Books. It was published in 2012 but is still in print.
Keyword searching transformed how I read
If you are going to make a bid for identifying a behavioral pattern or personality type or what have you then try not to use a word that carries too much baggage or would be generally considered the opposite.
I think if you asked people generally what a sophisticated reader was they would probably assume someone who read a lot, was willing to drop books and not finish them because they were not good, and so forth. But in this case he wants to call them unsophisticated readers in what I can only ascribe to knee jerk contrarianism and thinking it would be clever.
I mean really, if I could get everyone to call what was called a sophisticated reader an unsophisticated one think about what that would do for my genius career!