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Daniel_Burfoot comments on Rational Reading: Thoughts On Prioritizing Books - Less Wrong
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Comments (43)
For any reading that doesn't directly impact my areas of expertise, my selection criterion emphasizes prose quality over almost everything else. To a very great extent, if something is well-written, I don't care what it's about. Well written prose is both easier to read and easier to remember.
A not-very-deep strategy is to follow the prizes. I have never been disappointed by a book that won a Pulitzer Prize.
I deplore the use of tricks like Cliffs Notes and Anki Cards. I don't think that these actually increase comprehension and/or productivity, and they are probably unpleasant to use compared to a well-written book.
Some books deserve "Cliffs notes" treatment, being a relatively simple thesis padded out into a book. This especially true of a lot of the self-help and business literature. I won't hesitate to look for summaries of books which I think contain valuable ideas but which I suspect are mostly padding.
As for Anki cards, these are just flashcards, which you can create yourself after reading a book. My process for reading a book with useful information that I want to retain is to highlight the book while I'm reading, then at the end go back to the highlights and build a summary. I find that it helps me if I write the summary for someone else to read, because that forces me to explain the material and therefore to make sure that I understand it. I do not create Anki cards, but the point is the same: to distill the material in the book to help me to retain as much as possible of what I've read.
Constant,
Re: your 1st paragraph. Luckily, Kindle Singles has created a market for this.
Contra Daniel_Burfoot, I love Cliffs Notes. Most books I need to read are not useful to me from beginning to end - I'm usually looking for specific information or an overview of the ideas so that I can use those ideas elsewhere. Cliffs Notes are great for that.
Another heuristic in that form: in my experience, books written by journalists often have about as much substance as one long-form article. There are exceptions. Stanley Karnow's Vietnam was the most informative history book I've ever read; but then again, he was an old-school reporter.