[HN Gopher] A note on reading big, difficult books
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A note on reading big, difficult books
Author : MaysonL
Score : 57 points
Date : 2020-01-08 21:35 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bradford-delong.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bradford-delong.com)
| crazygringo wrote:
| Here's the thing: most books, for most people, don't _need_ to be
| absorbed or understood in their entirety.
|
| If you're a professional in your field and ought to be expected
| to be able to write a similar book? Then sure, you should
| understand it 100%. But this is a very rare circumstance for most
| people.
|
| For most books, the reality is that you only need to know the Big
| Idea and its main justifications. Or that, depending on your
| needs, there are a few additional details that might come in
| handy. But that reading the whole book a) really ensures you'll
| remember the big idea and its main justifications, in a way that
| a one-page summary you might totally forget later, and b) lets
| you skim for specific details that might be especially relevant
| to you personally.
|
| You shouldn't generally feel guilty that you don't remember
| enough from a book. You're not _supposed_ to. (Again, unless you
| have a very specific and necessary professional reason to.)
|
| Fully understanding a book might take 100 hours. In that time,
| you could read 10 other books in 10 hours each and get the main
| gist of each. Which one do you think is going to be more
| productive for your life?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I thought when I was younger I couldn't read big, difficult books
| and (since it never occurred to me that there might be people
| smarter than me) I concluded that nobody could read big,
| difficult books. It was quite an epiphany when I actually really
| forced myself to get through one - and once I had pushed past
| that first barrier, it's gotten easier and easier to read really
| meaningful books.
| hogFeast wrote:
| Most of these books are very poorly written. Smith's Wealth of
| Nations, as an example, is mostly very well-written and
| abysmally bad through the minority (Marx/Keynes probably the
| opposite). And meaning isn't really constant either, you read
| something and then come back to parts of it.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| That's a good point - when I think of big, difficult books, I
| think of Knuth, or SICP (or the bible)... the author's
| examples are more along the lines of philosophy.
| hogFeast wrote:
| This isn't really how most people should read books. You aren't
| reading a book to learn arguments like a parrot. The meaning of
| all the books he mentions has changed over time, and you won't
| have the same understanding the second time you read it (i.e.
| years after, re-reading it straight after is pointless...it is
| robotic).
|
| Also, just generally I think the structure of the course is bad.
| Reading three books cover-to-cover is basically pointless (Keynes
| esp. so as it was a textbook, I think he would turn in his grave
| if he thought people were being subjected to this, both
| Marx/Smith are very dry in areas too). It would be far better to
| look at the key ideas across more periods and get students to
| engage directly with those ideas...which is why similar courses
| in philosophy, theology, etc. do this.
| msie wrote:
| 6-9 hours per book seems impressive to me.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| That was my reaction too. Maybe this is an argument in favor or
| reading slower?
| tunesmith wrote:
| He certainly makes Wealth Of Nations sound compelling. I haven't
| read it before and want to see how it's structured as an actual
| argument with premises leading towards conclusions.
| arafa wrote:
| As suggested, it's an excellent but difficult read. But like
| many such books (say The Beginning of Infinity), they
| reverberate in my mind for years afterwards, with interesting
| inferences and callbacks.
|
| That said, you might skip the digression on silver (ugh).
| calpaterson wrote:
| It's fun but the English is not easy. Smith has some cool
| insights (which must have seemed much more novel at the time)
| and great skill at imparting them. I only read book 1(and the
| theory of moral sentiments).
| daly wrote:
| My research involves reading "big, difficult books" all the time.
| It usually takes me 5 books on the same subject to get a firm
| grip on the subject.
|
| The first book gives me the important words.
|
| The second book gives me the paragraphs that show how the words
| are used.
|
| The third book strings together the ideas.
|
| The fourth book shows how the ideas are used.
|
| The fifth book makes sense and I get a grip on the subject.
|
| Breaking into a new area where you don't even understand the
| words, such as in biology, is a very time consuming task.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Considering it seems like you're just building up your
| understanding one step at a time, wouldn't you also be able to
| read the same book 5 times?
| DelightOne wrote:
| Perspectives make the picture. None is complete, and all have
| assumptions.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| But that's not how the process was described. The first
| book is apparently only for vocabulary, the second for
| diction (not sure about a better term for this), third for
| basic concepts, fourth for application, and then finally a
| holistic understanding of the subject. If the case was
| looking at various ideas, I'd agree with you, but if the
| first book only "gives me the important words" and the
| second "gives me the paragraphs that show how the words are
| used" then it's not really giving you different
| perspectives as you're still very much in the
| "understanding what the book is talking about" phase.
| [deleted]
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I think this list could be written as "after finishing
| book one, I have the important words; after finishing
| book two, I have a grasp on how these words are used",
| etc.
|
| I.e. the process is additive, each book lets you tease
| out another layer of understanding, and it's best if
| these are different books, because then there are more
| things for your brain to diff, making the understanding
| process faster.
| __ka wrote:
| Reading big difficult books is offered as a way to teach
| reasoning from first principles. On how to go about it:
|
| "We have our recommended ten-stage process for reading such big
| books:
|
| 1. Figure out beforehand what the author is trying to accomplish
| in the book.
|
| 2. Orient yourself by becoming the kind of reader the book is
| directed at--the kind of person with whom the arguments would
| resonate.
|
| 3. Read through the book actively, taking notes.
|
| 4. "Steelman" the argument, reworking it so that you find it as
| convincing and clear as you can possibly make it.
|
| 5. Find someone else--usually a roommate--and bore them to death
| by making them listen to you set out your "steelmanned" version
| of the argument.
|
| 6. Go back over the book again, giving it a sympathetic but not
| credulous reading
|
| 7. Then you will be in a good position to figure out what the
| weak points of this strongest-possible argument version might be.
|
| 8. Test the major assertions and interpretations against reality:
| do they actually make sense of and in the context of the world as
| it truly is?
|
| 9. Decide what you think of the whole.
|
| 10. Then comes the task of cementing your interpretation, your
| reading, into your mind so that it becomes part of your
| intellectual panoply for the future."
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