David_Gerard comments on Personal Library Management - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Ritalin 05 July 2013 10:14PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 05 July 2013 10:48:51PM *  -1 points [-]

A solution I've found to reading-list problems is this: find someone else interested in getting through a pile of books. You and this person can exchange 1 page chapter summaries once every few days, with great shame or some penalty attached to missing this deadline. (ETA: say, contribute five dollars to a pot for every day past a deadline for a chapter, where the person making the fewest contributions gets the pot at the end of the year, something like that). I've gotten through several (very boring but important) books in this way. I also recommend reading pomodoro style: give yourself one or two min per page, say.

As to organization: I say burn them all, and download e-books whenever possible. Then read them on an e-reader that can't go on the internet. Actual, physical books are horrible objects.

Comment author: David_Gerard 06 July 2013 09:18:27AM *  2 points [-]

As to organization: I say burn them all, and download e-books whenever possible. Then read them on an e-reader that can't go on the internet. Actual, physical books are horrible objects.

I just don't read physical books. I started hitting the ebooks hard, and suddenly I was reading again.

Paul Graham claims books don't count as "stuff". THEY SO DO.

(The loved one is still into the paper things, so Amazon packages turn up regularly and moving house starts with twenty boxes that feel like they're full of plutonium.)