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<title>Nancy Pearl’s Rule of 50 for dropping a bad book | Hacker News</title></head><body><center><table id="hnmain" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="85%" bgcolor="#f6f6ef">
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<span class="score" id="score_17448301">194 points</span> by <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ingve" class="hnuser">ingve</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448301">10 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448301"></span> | <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/hide?id=17448301&goto=item%3Fid%3D17448301&auth=26a3b0a6e54b3cca2d05cb992762aff119df5366">hide</a> | <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Nancy%20Pearl%E2%80%99s%20Rule%20of%2050%20for%20dropping%20a%20bad%20book&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0" class="hnpast">past</a> | <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Nancy%20Pearl%E2%80%99s%20Rule%20of%2050%20for%20dropping%20a%20bad%20book">web</a> | <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/fave?id=17448301&auth=26a3b0a6e54b3cca2d05cb992762aff119df5366">favorite</a> | <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448301">133 comments</a> </td></tr>
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<table border="0"> <tbody><tr> <td class="ind"><img src="" height="1" width="0"></td><td valign="top" class="votelinks"><center><a id="up_17449403" onclick="return vote(event, this, "up")" href="https://news.ycombinator.com/vote?id=17449403&how=up&auth=9f4e485c0b1f4ada1f1822a715233bcbd369645c&goto=item%3Fid%3D17448301#17449403"><div class="votearrow" title="upvote"></div></a></center></td><td class="default"><div style="margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:-10px;"><span class="comhead">
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=m0nty" class="hnuser">m0nty</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449403">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449403"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="35" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449403)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I had the interesting experience of returning to two of Iain M Banks's novels, both of which I had read in my late 20s (20 years ago). <i>Feersum Endjinn</i> was fun but not at all profound: I had found it to be very thought-provoking the first time around. In fact, it was the first Banks book I read and it had me hooked. <i>Consider Phlebas</i> I had read and enjoyed, but it seemed flat, uninspired and uninteresting on second reading. I abandoned it after several chapters. I hardly ever abandon books but have done so more often recently - encroaching age does lead to impatience in some things. I'm not sure how I would feel returning to <i>Use of Weapons</i> and <i>The Wasp Factory</i>, both of which I found shocking and profound the first time around.<p>So the point of this is, your opinion of something might change, or maybe it's just that storytelling is like a magic trick which requires the wholehearted participation of writer and reader to be successful. If you're not interested, you should quit and find something else to do.</p><p>I'm the same with television - cannot watch <i>The Wire</i> too many times, cannot watch most other things even once.<span>
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<table border="0"> <tbody><tr> <td class="ind"><img src="" height="1" width="40"></td><td valign="top" class="votelinks"><center><a id="up_17452075" onclick="return vote(event, this, "up")" href="https://news.ycombinator.com/vote?id=17452075&how=up&auth=cf2935519b446a369f4ab3c9ce55d9c52a39c90c&goto=item%3Fid%3D17448301#17452075"><div class="votearrow" title="upvote"></div></a></center></td><td class="default"><div style="margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:-10px;"><span class="comhead">
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Osmium" class="hnuser">Osmium</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452075">33 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452075"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452075)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">> <i>Consider Phlebas</i> I had read and enjoyed, but it seemed flat, uninspired and uninteresting on second reading.<p>For what it's worth, <i>Consider Phlebas</i> was my introduction to Banks: I found it ok. Something like an above-average sci-fi action movie. I enjoyed reading it, and it left an impression, but not a spectacular one. However, I stuck with Banks, and by the time I got to <i>Use of Weapons</i> ... that was a book that really did floor me. I think Banks is really something special. Enlightening, maybe. Even if he can be uneven at times, I still haven't read anyone else quite like him.</p><p>Perhaps if I read it again, the magic wouldn't work a second time, I don't know, but it sure did work the first time.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cryoshon" class="hnuser">cryoshon</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452361">3 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452361"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452361)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">enlightening is the right word.<p>it isn't that his characters are interesting. they're multi dimensional but still mostly without an engaging personality (with the exception of the doctor from inversions and cheradenine zakalwe from use of weapons).</p><p>it isn't that the universe is very interesting. it's a basic space opera setup with a few quirks like sublimation that are mysterious but ultimately irrelevant. likewise, the plots are fairly boring. group X clandestinely does Y because Z; the end result is typically a tiny nudge in favor of group X's agenda.</p><p>but the ideology and technology of the Culture -- there's the entire value of the series. all of their technology is thought-provoking because it asks the question of what society should look like if such a technology could plausibly exist. likewise, the Culture's "system of government" is a great thought experiment on the best possible interpretation of anarchy. banks sets up plotlines to contrast the Culture against a number of other systems of government, and captures the failures of those very effectively across a huge swath of different contexts ranging from gender relations to art to pleasure to resource distribution. the Culture doesn't always get a favorable rating, either -- and so banks exposes the contradictions implied in societies.</p><p>fascinatingly, banks captures the essence of the Culture in a way that few other writers can do with any concept of such complexity. i feel confident that nearly all readers of the books could re-create Culture society to a high level of accuracy if they were prompted. yet if you try to distill Culture society into a few paragraphs, it's really hard!</p><p>so yeah, i read the books for the Culture. it's a shame banks died, i think he could have written a dozen more books in the series and delivered more great material.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=snowwrestler" class="hnuser">snowwrestler</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449995">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449995"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="20" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449995)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I loved <i>Jurassic Park</i> by Michael Crichton when I first read it as a teenager.<p>Recognizing how far my taste has developed since then, I recently re-read it... and found it to be a shrill anti-science screed wrapped in an action movie script.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=XorNot" class="hnuser">XorNot</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450404">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450404"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450404)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">That's just Michael Crichton in general. He went a lot further off the deep end after that judging by his output.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=satsuma" class="hnuser">satsuma</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451373">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451373"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451373)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">now i'm scared to re-read prey. loved that book in high school but i was a simpler man then<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vinceguidry" class="hnuser">vinceguidry</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450400">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450400"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="17" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450400)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c5a">Novels are written to satisfy the social milieu of the time in which it's written. Society's moved on since Jurassic Park, why <i>would</i> it still be relevant?<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=robotresearcher" class="hnuser">robotresearcher</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451873">58 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451873"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="3" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451873)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">If the book addresses human fundamentals instead of transient silliness, it can last forever. The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), Heart of Darkness (1899) and Jane Eyre (1847) are still relevant <i>and</i> enjoyable, for example.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vinceguidry" class="hnuser">vinceguidry</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452036">38 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452036"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452036)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I loved the Count of Monte Christo, and took pains to get an unabridged copy. I got through it, but if I'd had <i>anything</i> else to do at the time, I don't think I would have.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=robotresearcher" class="hnuser">robotresearcher</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452373">0 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452373"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452373)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">The impatient sci-fi fan can can substitute Alfred Bester's resetting in space. Much shorter and has some cool ideas about teleporting in addition to the revenge served cold. Lacks the lovely florid language of the original.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination</a><span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Splines" class="hnuser">Splines</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451654">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451654"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451654)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">> <i>Novels are written to satisfy the social milieu of the time in which it's written. </i><p>Some of them are, some of them aren't. It's easier to see this with movies. Pop-culture references and characters using the latest technology are easy ways to make a movie more ephemeral.</p><p>A character popping memes holding an iPhone X will not age well.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=levesque" class="hnuser">levesque</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450587">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450587"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="4" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450587)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">He didn't say it was no longer relevant, just <i>bad</i>. Are you saying we shouldn't read books that are older than a given time limit?<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vinceguidry" class="hnuser">vinceguidry</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450784">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450784"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="3" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450784)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">And I'm saying that the perception of a novel's 'goodness' depends a lot on its relevance. I'm not saying that you shouldn't read them, but rather that you should consider their relevance when you make your judgment call.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=levesque" class="hnuser">levesque</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450885">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450885"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450885)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Then I'll say this: I'm pretty sure Jurassic Park was bad science fiction when it came out too.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=paulcole" class="hnuser">paulcole</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451097">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451097"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451097)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">But a very entertaining story though!<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Sangermaine" class="hnuser">Sangermaine</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451215">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451215"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451215)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Nonsense. We still read works from centuries or even millennia ago that continue to be lauded and enjoyed.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=adamsea" class="hnuser">adamsea</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450835">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450835"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450835)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I think the parent's comment was more about the literary tastes of a teenager / young adult verses an adult / older person. That isn't to say your point isn't valid, just that it seems orthogonal to the parent's point.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=andromaton" class="hnuser">andromaton</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450524">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450524"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="6" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450524)">[+6]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c5a">Obligatory Shakespeare wants to talk to you.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vinceguidry" class="hnuser">vinceguidry</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450761">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450761"></span><span class="par"></span> [flagged] <a class="togg" n="5" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450761)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="cce">Shakespeare didn't write novels, he wrote plays and poetry.<p>Edit: I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the HN crowd doesn't care to distinguish between types of creative media.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sangnoir" class="hnuser">sangnoir</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451414">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451414"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451414)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">> I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the HN crowd doesn't care to distinguish between types of creative media<p>No snark: did/do you think anyone who has ever read Shakespeare is not aware of that? Even without literature teachers to explain the history and background, the format gives away that secret.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kej" class="hnuser">kej</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451362">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451362"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451362)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I think I agree with you that the context of an artistic work is a valuable lens through which to view it, but there are definitely timeless works of art, too. Don Quixote or most of Dickens come to mind.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vinceguidry" class="hnuser">vinceguidry</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452022">39 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452022"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452022)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Sure. But novels specifically require a greater-than-usual time investment, so they will appeal to a more niche crowd than a play, it's modern analogue, the movie, or a poem. And the length practically requires filler.<p>Most anyone aiming at timelessness avoids the novel format, which is far more geared towards time-killing entertainment. That doesn't mean you can't find timeless novels, but they're fairly rare. We remember Jane Austen, but not the endless legion of contemporaries inhabiting the same space she did.</p><p>Your examples themselves are instructive. Don Quixote was one of the very first novels ever written. Of course it's amazing. Dickens' novels were originally serialized in magazines, not published in full. It's a testament to his genius that they're as timeless as they are. His seminal work, <i>A Christmas Carol</i> was published in full, but it was a novella, not a novel.</p><p>I remember reading Anna Karenina and thinking the pacing could have been a <i>lot</i> tighter. The novel has almost from the beginning been pop fare, more of a business concern than an artistic one.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mmartinson" class="hnuser">mmartinson</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451173">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451173"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451173)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c5a">sick burn<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=monochromatic" class="hnuser">monochromatic</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449941">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449941"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="7" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449941)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I actually gave up on Banks’s <i>The Player of Games</i> a couple of days ago. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance, but I just couldn’t get interested.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sulam" class="hnuser">sulam</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450153">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450153"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="5" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450153)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Player of Games is the book I recommend to people to know if they'll like all of his books. It's kind of a set piece for all of them. So I can say with some confidence that you probably won't like many of his books.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=monochromatic" class="hnuser">monochromatic</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450226">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450226"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="4" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450226)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I thought Consider Phlebas was pretty good. Maybe I should give this one more of a chance.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pavel_lishin" class="hnuser">pavel_lishin</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450943">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450943"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="3" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450943)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I think Consider Phlebas was more of a generic action/adventure yarn, whereas Player of Games is a good tour of The Culture (by contrasting it with Azad).<p>I read Consider Phlebas first and enjoyed the hell out of it, but definitely think that Player of Games is, in 90% of situations, is the "correct" introduction novel.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=discardable_dan" class="hnuser">discardable_dan</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451816">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451816"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451816)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I couldn't get into Consider Phlebas---I found the 'protagonist' too deeply flawed and unlikable. Is it likely I'll enjoy his other work in light of this?<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pavel_lishin" class="hnuser">pavel_lishin</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451888">56 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451888"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451888)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">If your only issue was the unlikeable "antihero" protagonist, then maybe? Most of his characters tend to be, at best, morally ambiguous. I know I said so in the previous comment, but Player of Games isn't too bad - the protagonist isn't really a good guy, but he's also not an amoral killer-for-hire.<p>Excession might be a better bet, although <i>a lot</i> of the novel basically consists of reading emails between characters.</p><p>I'm pretty sure you'd hate Use of Weapons.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=AndrewStephens" class="hnuser">AndrewStephens</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450089">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450089"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450089)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">The Player of Games is sort of Banks-lite. If you didn't like that then you are not going to get into his other stuff. Personally I like his novel but I can understand why others don't - he has a certain style and way of constructing plots that either grabs you of leaves you bored.<p>There are certainly many books that I struggled through and wished I didn't, but there are others that I thought I was going to hate long past the 50 page mark that brought me around in the end. But 50 pages is enough to know that a book is _terrible_.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cryoshon" class="hnuser">cryoshon</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452182">23 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452182"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452182)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">i only read consider phlebas after reading player of games as my introduction to banks. gotta say, consider phlebas didn't come off well at all. fairly flat, not really many interesting ideas or characters. kind of a generic space opera-punk story.<p>use of weapons was a strong point, however. i love banks work, but if consider phlebas had been the first that i approached, it might have passed my 40 page test but i doubt i would have gone on to read the other culture books.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=potta_coffee" class="hnuser">potta_coffee</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450513">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450513"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="4" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450513)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="cae">I made it about 2/3 of the way through Wasp Factory, first book I've tried by this author. I just couldn't find a reason to keep going, the book didn't do it for me. I think I quit shortly after he killed the little girl by tying her to a kite and letting her go over the ocean - too absurd for me I guess.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jcoffland" class="hnuser">jcoffland</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450828">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450828"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450828)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Dude, major spoiler!<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=potta_coffee" class="hnuser">potta_coffee</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452154">26 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452154"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452154)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I don't understand the pique, the thread is not about this book, but about dropping bad books. I found this one particularly bad. Regardless, the minor plot point I gave away didn't seem very important to the story, in fact it was so stupid that I didn't finish the book. Typically if I'm interested in a book, I'll avoid conversations about it on the internet, "spoilers" are guaranteed to occur in any meaningful conversation about anything.<p>Despite that, I'll edit my original comment with a spoiler warning.</p><p>Edit: Too late to edit...<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tsmarsh" class="hnuser">tsmarsh</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450804">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450804"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450804)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Its a short book with a delicious twist at the end. I think the pay off was somewhere in the last 10% of the book.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=shadowsun7" class="hnuser">shadowsun7</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448681">8 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448681"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="15" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17448681)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">What has worked really well for me has been to follow Peter Bregman's reading technique, which he got from history professor Michael Jimenez (story and full article here: <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/02/how-to-read-a-book-a-week" rel="nofollow">https://hbr.org/2016/02/how-to-read-a-book-a-week</a>):<p></p><pre><code> 1. Check out the author’s bio online to get a sense of the person’s bias and perspective.
2. Read the title, subtitle, front flap, table of contents. Figure out the big-picture argument of the book, and how that argument is laid out.
3. Read the introduction and conclusion word for word to figure out where the author starts from and where he eventually gets to.
4. Read/skim each chapter: Read the title, the first few paragraphs or the first few pages of the chapter to figure out how the author is using the chapter and where it fits into the argument of the whole book. Then skim through headings and subheadings to get an idea of the flow. Read the first sentence and last sentence of each paragraph. Once you get an argument, feel free to move on to the next argument, skipping over the many repeated case studies or examples.
5. End with the table of contents again, looking through, and summarising each.
</code></pre>
I've found that this has worked wonders for my reading. A year or so later, I refined this technique further, as I found that it didn't work for all books (it works for 'single-idea' books, which I call 'branch books'; it doesn't work as well for 'map of ideas' books, which I call 'tree books'.) For example, <i>The Long Tail</i> is the an example of a branch book, and <i>Thinking: Fast and Slow</i> is an example of a tree book.<p>(I've written a longer post about the categories here: <a href="https://commoncog.com/blog/the-3-kinds-of-non-fiction-book/" rel="nofollow">https://commoncog.com/blog/the-3-kinds-of-non-fiction-book/</a>)</p><p><i>Edited for formatting</i><span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ericdykstra" class="hnuser">ericdykstra</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449283">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449283"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="6" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449283)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I'm trying to just not read "single-idea" books at all any more, especially of the "take a 30 minute TEDx talk and turn it into 352 pages" variety. If a book isn't worth reading cover-to-cover, it's not worth reading at all.<p>After suffering through most of "Grit" I just couldn't take it any more and vowed not to read a book like that again. It was one of a few books I've read that's just taking an existing idea (in this case, trait conscientiousness), re-branding it as something else (grit), and then page after page of hammering the same point + anecdotes.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=vazamb" class="hnuser">vazamb</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449684">5 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449684"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="4" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449684)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I am glad other people get that feeling too. A lot of pop-sci books are not terribly bad but could be cut down to 1/4 of their length. Another example for this is "Deep work" by Cal Newport. Great idea, something to actively think about. But not necessary to be spread out across 300 pages...<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=byproxy" class="hnuser">byproxy</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450070">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450070"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450070)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">As a counterexample, I felt "The Information" could have easily been three times its size.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dredmorbius" class="hnuser">dredmorbius</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452074">33 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452074"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452074)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">That's a book I've approached conversationally -- asking it questions, essentially. And been somewhat frustrated by promising hints of deeper meanings not revealed.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pmulv" class="hnuser">pmulv</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450162">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450162"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450162)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I'm reading "Deep Work" currently, and I agree with your sentiment. I find myself ironically losing focus and thinking about how I can get the meat of this book from a blog post a tenth of the size. The case-studies he presents are interesting though, so I keep reading.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Theodores" class="hnuser">Theodores</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450270">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450270"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450270)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">A better question is 'did this book have to be written?' and with most of what you see in the bookshop window the answer is 'no'.<p>If the answer is 'yes' then I can tolerate the single idea taking up a whole book.</p><p>If the author then goes on to write a second, third, fourth book then they have probably crossed over from writing books that needed to be written to just regurgitating the same idea, based on the fame of the first book.</p><p>Publishing is an industry and they know how to do marketing.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=computator" class="hnuser">computator</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448849">8 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448849"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17448849)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Opening a book at a random places and reading a couple paragraphs was easy in physical bookstores but now so difficult online. In particular, Amazon insists on showing only the very beginning of a book (preface, table of contents, intro) and the end of a book (the index). You can no longer browse random pages out of the middle of the book.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=0xffff2" class="hnuser">0xffff2</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450921">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450921"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450921)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Please for the love of god don't use code blocks to format quotes. This one is tough to read even on desktop due to the scrolling!<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=LeifCarrotson" class="hnuser">LeifCarrotson</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452364">3 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452364"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452364)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Fixed:<p><i>> 1. Check out the author’s bio online to get a sense of the person’s bias and perspective.</i></p><p><i>> 2. Read the title, subtitle, front flap, table of contents. Figure out the big-picture argument of the book, and how that argument is laid out.</i></p><p><i>> 3. Read the introduction and conclusion word for word to figure out where the author starts from and where he eventually gets to.</i></p><p><i>> 4. Read/skim each chapter: Read the title, the first few paragraphs or the first few pages of the chapter to figure out how the author is using the chapter and where it fits into the argument of the whole book. Then skim through headings and subheadings to get an idea of the flow. Read the first sentence and last sentence of each paragraph. Once you get an argument, feel free to move on to the next argument, skipping over the many repeated case studies or examples.</i></p><p><i>> 5. End with the table of contents again, looking through, and summarising each.</i><span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kieckerjan" class="hnuser">kieckerjan</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449147">7 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449147"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449147)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">That looks inspired by How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. One of the few "self-help books" I can wholeheartedly recommend.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=philwelch" class="hnuser">philwelch</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452249">16 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452249"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452249)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">But how do you read "How To Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler?<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dredmorbius" class="hnuser">dredmorbius</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452071">34 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452071"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452071)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">This applies, generally, to nonfiction works (and I apply a similar strategy, often focusing heavily on the index and endnotes, or their lack (a very bad sign)).<p>Less so to fiction or entertainment.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=spraak" class="hnuser">spraak</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449053">7 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449053"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449053)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">At the end do you still read the book straight through? Even so, it seems equal in effort to just read the book. Though to be fair I haven't tried your method, I just feel skeptical.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=omginternets" class="hnuser">omginternets</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449078">7 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449078"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449078)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I routinely use a similar method, and the idea is not to reduce the amount of work, but rather to increase the degree of comprehension.<p>Roughly 30% of the text in your average book occludes understanding if you read through it linearly. This is a technique for getting at the essential thesis, which can then be supplemented with a thorough, cover-to-cover re-reading.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pitt1980" class="hnuser">pitt1980</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450087">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450087"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="7" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450087)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">More generally than just books,<p>when to quit, is a really hard problem</p><p>I'm reminded of the Hacker New link from a month or so ago about 'The emotional journey of creating anything great' <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164822" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164822</a></p><p>where most of the time invested in doing something, looks like all the time you invested, will end up having a poor ROI</p><p>pretty much every point there except the end looks like a case study for calling it a sunk cost and quitting to do something else.</p><p>Its a hard thing to know when your sample size of data is big enough to make conclusions that have consequences on</p><p>(I guess all in all that's the point, you need to use some heuristic, and the link is arguing for a heuristic of 50 pgs when reading a book, which seems like a rule of thumb that I have no particular objection to)<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=asah" class="hnuser">asah</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451993">43 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451993"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451993)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">There's an algorithm for this: if the risk-adjusted net present value (whole utility curve, not money) is lower than something else you could be doing, then do that instead. Obviously, humans like variety so one needs to consider goods and experiences where the commitment is in multiple units and baskets.<p>To bolster confidence in the decision to drop a project, it's also important to "complete" (feel like you've completed...) a certain number of projects. Wellness/self-esteem are also improved with project completion.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=XorNot" class="hnuser">XorNot</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450415">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450415"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="3" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450415)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">For me it would've been 1 year into my (ultimately failed) Ph. D project. I would be a lot wealthier now if I'd launched into the tech world then and been working all that time.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ramses0" class="hnuser">ramses0</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450598">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450598"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450598)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="cae">Likely not. You would be poorer than you are now if you had kept at your PhD for one more year. Yet you say you stopped it and you're still commenting on y.combinator in your copious free time.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rdiddly" class="hnuser">rdiddly</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450657">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450657"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450657)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Having a hard time discerning your point.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=andreofthecape" class="hnuser">andreofthecape</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450183">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450183"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450183)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">When to quit... great question! Seth Godin wrote a wonderful little book on this called 'The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and when to stick)'<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pitt1980" class="hnuser">pitt1980</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450276">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450276"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450276)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Thanks for the recommendation!<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pjc50" class="hnuser">pjc50</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449232">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449232"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="5" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449232)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Definitely a "journey" vs "destination" thing going on here. If you're interested in finding how a novel ends, of course you can skip to the back; but hardly anyone does that, because it's the process of reaching there that's the important (and supposed to be enjoyable) part. So if it's not an enjoyable process, it's worth questioning what social ideas of "worthiness" are leading you to press on with it. Doubly so with "classic" books, where you might need to read a whole other chunk of canon to have the proper context for understanding why this book is supposed to be good in the first place. Or you need to skip some bits that have aged badly.<p>For non-fiction, it's worth separating books which sincerely have a thesis and supporting arguments from books which are trying to sell you an idea, even (especially) if it's an idea you really want to hear.</p><p>There is no longer a "canon" that you can expect everyone to have read; the world is far too big and contains too many people, books, cultures and ideas.</p><p>(For youtube videos, when I'm trying to get information on something, I employ a "rule of third": just drop the slider a third of the way in and skip all the personal introduction and setup, to see if this video might actually get to the point.)<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sevagh" class="hnuser">sevagh</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450917">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450917"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450917)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">>(For youtube videos, when I'm trying to get information on something, I employ a "rule of third": just drop the slider a third of the way in and skip all the personal introduction and setup, to see if this video might actually get to the point.)<p>Aka the Wadsworth constant: <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-wadsworth-constant" rel="nofollow">http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-wadsworth-constant</a><span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=glangdale" class="hnuser">glangdale</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449385">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449385"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449385)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">The point is that if you're not enjoying the journey, you skip to the end and take out the "I need to get to the destination" motivation for finishing. I do this all the time: if the book is getting tedious, I prevent myself from compulsively finishing it by "giving away the end" to myself.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pavel_lishin" class="hnuser">pavel_lishin</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450951">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450951"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450951)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I do the opposite. If I'm finding the novel a slog, I'll read the Wikipedia synopsis. If the payoff seems worth it, I'll keep going - I think that most novels where a "twist" isn't the only selling point are worth reading even if you know the plot.<p>(And if the payoff doesn't, I drop the book. That's what I did with Mieville's Embassytown at the 50% mark.)<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kbutler" class="hnuser">kbutler</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449466">5 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449466"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449466)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Rather than skip to the end, googling plot summaries (for popular books) and or other summaries like Cliff's Notes (for classics) are also really useful.
If you don't care about spoilers (and if you're considering just dropping the book, why would you care?), you can get a good idea of "what happens" and see if you are interested enough in the "journey" to bother with the "destination."<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DEADBEEFC0FFEE" class="hnuser">DEADBEEFC0FFEE</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449021">7 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449021"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="8" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449021)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I definitely used to be a hardcore finisher. It's a really difficult habit to break, as it feels like personal failure, and violation if principle. My wife was also, and independently a book finisher.<p>I don't recall the realisation that life is short and there is so much to do. Neither of us are finishers now. But I do have a special shelf for unfinished books. They stare at me.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=shoo" class="hnuser">shoo</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449235">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449235"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="3" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449235)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">one thing i started doing in recent years is just borrowing heaps of books from the library. trawl the catalogue, see what's ready for borrowing, borrow half a dozen ones that look interesting or are on the reading backlog. then start reading a few of them in parallel. if some of them don't hold your attention, stop reading and focus on the ones that are interesting. take them all back to the library when they're due, read or not.<p>edit:</p><p>okay, so now for the obvious question, what's the correct way of framing the which-books-should-be-finished problem, and what's the optimal strategy?</p><p>is this a bandit algorithm thing? at each interval t, sample a page from a book according to gittins indices to minimise lifetime regret? does it need monte carlo tree search?<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=noelwelsh" class="hnuser">noelwelsh</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449710">5 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449710"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449710)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Not a classical bandit because the arms have a finite lifetime (the arm is no longer active once you read the whole book) and you know this lifetime. Definitely can be viewed as some form of RL problem. For me the challenge is how you define rewards and hence what information reading part of a book gives you about the total reward for completing the book. Maybe assume some smoothness criteria, so that the reward for reading part n of a book is highly informative of reading part n+1, but less informative of part n+2, and so on. More formally, each book gives some total reward on completion and that reward is distributed according to some stochastic process.<p>Greedy strategies probably work reasonably well.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rusk" class="hnuser">rusk</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449247">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449247"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449247)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Massively Parallel Speculative Evaluation. I like it!<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=JoeAltmaier" class="hnuser">JoeAltmaier</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449394">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449394"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449394)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I usually have a stack by my bed. Each time I get bored with a book, I put it on the stack and start another one. When I finish, I pop the stack. Maybe now its interesting? It usually works, but it can take 6 months or a year sometimes to get back to bare table top. And the stack can get really tall.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=6ak74rfy" class="hnuser">6ak74rfy</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450537">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450537"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450537)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">In your system, one might not even be <i>compelled</i> to finish any book at all. Instead, read as much as you want, at any pace you want, and drop the book once you don't see any need to read it further - maybe you got bored or felt you've extracted everything meaningful out of it.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=logfromblammo" class="hnuser">logfromblammo</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450280">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450280"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450280)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I used to be, too. Here are the two easy steps I took to break that habit:<p>1. Start reading <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>. When John Galt starts making his speech, skip to the next chapter. You have now gained the ability to skip pieces of a book that are really, incredibly tedious.</p><p>2. Start reading <i>Twilight</i>. When it starts feeling like torture to continue, stop. Use the rest as fire starters for your grill. You have gained the ability to not read books you discover that you don't like.</p><p>Take those unfinished off the shelf and get rid of them. Sell them to the used independent. Donate them. Burn them. Landfill them. Whatever. You can reclaim that shelf space for books you not only want to finish, but re-read and finish again.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sudouser" class="hnuser">sudouser</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450445">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450445"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450445)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">ive seen <i>twilight</i> books in curbside as trash<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=egypturnash" class="hnuser">egypturnash</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451214">2 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451214"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="6" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451214)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">My rule is that you can’t drop a book until you’ve read at least as much as the most you’ve told someone else to read before giving up on something you’ve loved. Saying “Oh, Wheel Of Time is GREAT once you’ve slogged through the first three shitty tomes!” means you are <i>fucked</i> by this rule.<p>I am also pushing fifty and have read a lot, life’s too goddamn short to not give up a book the moment you stop giving any fucks about it.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bena" class="hnuser">bena</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451478">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451478"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="4" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451478)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Yeah, entertainment's purpose is to entertain. If it fails to do that in the beginning, it's not for you.<p>The whole you have to watch/read/listen to X amount before passing judgment is bullshit. If I surround a chocolate cake in three inches of shit, no one will fault you for not eating through the shit just to get to the cake. It might be a good cake. It might be the best cake. But I'm not chowing through three inches of shit just to get it.</p><p>Maybe next time, don't cover your cake in shit and see how that goes.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sten" class="hnuser">sten</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452086">32 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452086"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452086)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">This doesn't hold in all cases. One of my all time favorite books is Catch-22. That was an absolute slog to complete when I first read it in university and I considered abandoning it several times. However the ending surprised me and I went on to reevaluate the entire story with fresh eyes. Plenty of novels (and other media now that I think of it) require long setups for a sufficiently sophisticated punch.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=byproxy" class="hnuser">byproxy</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451823">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451823"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451823)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">If you're reading purely for entertainment you're entering the act with a bunch of expectation baggage (and probably looking over some worthwhile literature in the process).<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bena" class="hnuser">bena</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452076">33 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452076"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452076)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Like expecting to be entertained? He was talking about fiction. Mentally change the word to engagement if you find entertainment too trite.<p>The point is that if the creator wants their work experienced, they must make the experience enjoyable in some fashion all the way through.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dredmorbius" class="hnuser">dredmorbius</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452059">35 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452059"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452059)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Some books <i>do</i> pay off after the slog. Anathem after about 200 pages. Cryptonomicon after 100. The Baroque Cycle after most of the first book.<p>Some don't.</p><p>The rule of thumb fails.</p><p>If someone has reason to know that the book <i>does</i> get better, then great. But it's no reason to grant <i>every</i> book that much leeway.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=djtriptych" class="hnuser">djtriptych</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451994">43 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451994"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451994)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">This is funny because books are about the only thing I really feel compelled to finish whether I like it or not.<p>I've abandoned countless side projects, instruments, sports, meals, friendships etc when they stopped holding value for me.</p><p>But once I crack open a book I really feel like I have to finish it before I can get on with my life. I don't start a lot of books anymore but they tend to stay on my todo list until I've literally read every word..<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Nannooskeeska" class="hnuser">Nannooskeeska</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452143">27 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17452143"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17452143)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I'm the same way. If I lose interest in a book partway through, I'll stop reading it and go on to other books for a period of time and finish it later. I currently have 6 books in my "Reading" list on Goodreads, 5 of which I started at some point in the last couple of years and haven't finished yet.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Munksgaard" class="hnuser">Munksgaard</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448581">9 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448581"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="5" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17448581)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I suffer under the same affliction Nancy is describing: I cannot bear the idea of putting down a book that I've started.<p>Currently I'm struggling to get through Gödel, Escher, Bach. I like the ideas presented, especially the parallels between music and art (which I know little about) on one hand, and mathematics and computer science (which I know more about) on the other hand. But I think that it lacks focus and a clear thread. Additionally, I already know most of the mathematical concepts presented in the book, so I don't feel like I benefit much from the long chapters detailing various proofs and formal systems. To make matters worse, Hofstadter avoids using conventional notation and terminology, so I'll be reading through page upon page of detailed descriptions of his own little formal system only to finally realize "Oh, he's just describing propositional logic in a roundabout way".</p><p>Meanwhile, I've got a bunch of other interesting books sitting on my shelf that I'd like to read. Alas, there are only about 300 pages left...<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=computator" class="hnuser">computator</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448755">8 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448755"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17448755)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">One great thing about Gödel, Escher, Bach is that you can enjoy it by flipping it open to a random place and reading a few pages, or if you don't like it or get it, flip to a different section. It's neither a novel nor a textbook. You don't have to understand A, B, C, & D, before you can understand (or at least appreciate) E. I treated like a coffee table book, reading 2/3 of it but randomly.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=n4r9" class="hnuser">n4r9</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448937">7 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448937"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17448937)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I was in almost exactly your position two or three years ago. I appreciated reading about Bach's self-referential patterns and had some fun playing with the toy formal systems, but as someone with a background in pure mathematics I found much of it long-winded and tedious. I carried on trying to slog through it because a friend (who's sister had bought it for him) shoved it into my hands on the proviso that I explain to him what it was all about. Eventually - about halfway through - I simply surrendered in the face of mounting gratuitous discourse. I just wanted it to cut to the chase.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mattmanser" class="hnuser">mattmanser</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448719">8 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448719"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17448719)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I've never struggled stopping with non-fiction, I think because at Uni when studying philosophy they often recommended a lot of books with "read chapter 10 + 14" of a book.<p>Often the rest of the book was a boring, pointless drudgery that rehashed arguments I'd already read and that really opened my eyes.</p><p>I remember more than once deciding to read the whole book instead of the recommended chapters. Descarte's Meditations springs to mind, the first half of the book is great (think therefore I am), the 2nd half is bad (trying to prove the existence of god, having just disproved him).</p><p>Also, I read Immanuel Kant and he is probably one of the worst famous writers in history. He was awful at expressing himself, and if you've had to endure that, you learn to skip chapters at a time looking for the crux of a book. Hegel was similarly bad I seem to remember.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=madhadron" class="hnuser">madhadron</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451844">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451844"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451844)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I give you permission to put down GEB. If you already know some logic and music, there's no point in reading it.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zaidf" class="hnuser">zaidf</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449084">7 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449084"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449084)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00"><i>And if, at the bottom of Page 50, all you're really interested in is who marries whom, or who the murderer is, then turn to the last page and find out.</i><p>Ironically, I simply wanted to know what the actual rule was. It takes some effort to find it hidden in the middle of the article.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cannam" class="hnuser">cannam</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451956">47 minutes ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451956"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451956)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Some years ago I had a conversation with a friend about Douglas Coupland's novel <i>Microserfs</i>. He said, "That book annoyed me so much I tore it up, on the Tube."<p>I had never thought of <i>stopping</i> reading as such a decisive act.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ilamont" class="hnuser">ilamont</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449421">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449421"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="4" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449421)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00"><i>Give a book 50 pages. When you get to the bottom of Page 50, ask yourself if you're really liking the book.</i><p>I can usually tell within 10-20 pages.</p><p>I also have the "five minute rule" with TV shows, movies (on streaming services), and other activities. Only so much time left on this planet.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bluesroo" class="hnuser">bluesroo</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450138">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450138"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450138)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I completely agree. I've run into a lot of people who say something like the following:<p>> But dude, you just have to get through the first 3 seasons and the show gets so good.</p><p>No, I'm really fine not wasting 15-30 hours of my life when there's hundreds of other incredible shows, movies, books, and video games.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=JoeAltmaier" class="hnuser">JoeAltmaier</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450152">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450152"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450152)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Right! When somebody says "You should watch this great new series!" its like they're saying "You should knit this great afghan!" Man-weeks of work. No thanks.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wonderbear" class="hnuser">wonderbear</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449826">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449826"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449826)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Similar. If I'm not excited about a tv show by the time the first set of credits is shown, then I'll only watch the rest of the pilot if my friends have assured me it's really good. And even then I won't watch more than the pilot if it doesn't speak to me. Maybe it will get better in the second season or whatever, but life is short and a tv series is a lot of time.<p>Books, I'm a bit more dogged about. It has to be pretty bad before I won't at least skim it before giving up. Partly this is because I'm a very fast reader and most books I can finish in a sitting or two.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rusk" class="hnuser">rusk</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449238">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449238"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449238)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I remember the first book I intentionally didn't finish. It was a fictional work that I'd gotten about 85% the way through and I felt the narrative start to deterioriate. It was one of those books that makes bold promises at the outset but then kind of just strung you along with increasingly vapid plot twists and I was at a point in my life where I was learning to be impatient and I just said <i>fuckit</i>.<p>Never felt guilty about not finishing a book again. Life's too short to be giving due diligence to poor authors.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=peteretep" class="hnuser">peteretep</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448796">8 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17448796"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17448796)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">> And if, at the bottom of Page 50, all you're really interested in is who marries whom, or who the murderer is, then turn to the last page and find out.<p>Thank God for Wikipedia's plot summaries of books and films.</p><p>> there's no way that anyone there will be able to tell (even if they were interested) whether you've really read every page of the book you just returned.</p><p>Unless it was a Kindle book, right? :-P<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cafard" class="hnuser">cafard</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449483">5 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449483"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449483)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I suspect that I would never have finished <i>The Man Who Loved Children</i> by Christina Stead if I had followed that rule. As a matter of fact, page 120 might not have sufficed. It stopped me once, in my 20s, but when I picked it up in my 50s and pushed on, I was very glad I did.<p>I agree that life is too short to read crummy books through. I do now and then for a neighborhood book club, with gritted teeth.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Amorymeltzer" class="hnuser">Amorymeltzer</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449490">5 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449490"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449490)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">While I think this is good, my impression is that it works better for fiction than non-fiction. Most of my reading the past few years has been non-fiction, and the hardest thing is finding a book on a good subject and with interesting information, but poorly written or just generally unenjoyable. I know that continuing will be painful, but I also know that continuing will allow me to learn about the subject. Not sure 50 pages (or some other metric) works in this scenario, only real option is to find a better book on the subject!<p>As for fiction, what really did it for me was listening to the New York Times Book Review podcast[1], specifically the reviewers and Editor Pamela Paul. Many of them, especially PP, frequently mention not finishing a book, and hearing that from them felt liberating. It's still hard, but I figure if they can put a book down, so can I.</p><p>1: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/column/book-review-podcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/column/book-review-podcast</a><span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tw04" class="hnuser">tw04</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451538">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451538"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451538)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">If I had followed this, I never would've finished the "A Song of Fire and Ice" series (game of thrones). I guess technically I may never <i>FINISH</i> since he hasn't written all the books yet.<p>It is a VERY painful start. And if you read interviews with Martin, he admits he had no idea where hew as going with the story until about halfway through the first book.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=munificent" class="hnuser">munificent</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17451699">1 hour ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17451699"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17451699)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Devil's advocate: If you hadn't, perhaps you would have found other even better books to read during that time.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jimbokun" class="hnuser">jimbokun</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450224">4 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450224"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450224)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">Ha, she really does have an action figure!<p><a href="https://mcphee.com/products/librarian-action-figure" rel="nofollow">https://mcphee.com/products/librarian-action-figure</a><span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nothis" class="hnuser">nothis</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17449442">6 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17449442"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="2" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17449442)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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<span class="c00">I would have dropped every Stephen King book by that measure. Actually, maybe I should have.<span>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=logfromblammo" class="hnuser">logfromblammo</a> <span class="age"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17450342">3 hours ago</a></span> <span id="unv_17450342"></span><span class="par"></span> <a class="togg" n="1" href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="return toggle(event, 17450342)">[-]</a> <span class="storyon"></span>
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