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/lit/ - Literature

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6526084 No.6526084 [Reply] [Original]

>There are actually people on this board who read non-fiction books cover-to-cover

When will you people learn? As the great Locke scholar and current Professor of Intellectual History at Cambridge once taught me: raid, don't read. The vast majority of non-fiction you'll encounter, with the exception of a handful of the great philosophers, has no value outside of the information and argument it contains - and most of that can be abstracted within an hour of opening the book by approaching the exercise in the correct manner.

Life is too short, anons. Most books are there to be raped and pillaged, not lovingly studied.

>> No.6526091

>>6526084
>non-fiction

You don't even have to read fiction books from cover to cover. Most novels are filled with useless descriptions and side-plots that you can just skip over entirely and you can still enjoy the book.

>> No.6526103

>>6526084
You don't enjoy knowledge

>>6526091
You don't enjoy art

>> No.6526118

>>6526103
>You don't enjoy knowledge
I enjoy knowledge more than you do, and that's why I behave in such a way that will allow me to acquire far more of it than you ever will.

>> No.6526119

>>6526103

It's not about enjoyment. It's about getting the golden nugget of information you need from a book and using it to better your life. Most books, fiction and non-fiction, only have a few important things which you need to know. If you compare the knowledge of someone who reads a whole book once a month, to someone who finds those golden nuggets of information once every day, you'll find that the latter person isn't only smarter than the former, but he is usually a happier and more successful person.

>> No.6526136

>>6526084
Sometimes you're interested in the way a book is constructed. Sometimes the subject is so rich that you do want to contemplate each and every example. Sometimes it's just a pleasant read.

But yeah, I speedread the bastards more often than not.

>> No.6526194

What should I raid? I never learned how.

>> No.6526211

>>6526136
Is speed reading really what he means by raiding? And by speed reading do you mean skimming?

>> No.6526230

>>6526119
Prove it then

>> No.6526240

>>6526230

The proof is this man right here: >>6524744

>> No.6526245

>>6526211
Raiding certainly involves both speedreading and skimming, unless the book is so clearly structured that you already know exactly where to get what you want in each section and each paragraph. Some pop nonfiction allows that, but the more in-depth works usually don't.

>> No.6526249

why would anyone write off an entire category of books, or even more bizarrely, recommend only reading part of them. (WHICH PART SHOULD I SKIP? DO I ASK /LIT/ BEFORE I READ EACH PAGE????)

>> No.6526251

>>6526240
But he is ALL ABOUT extracting the golden nugget of wisdom from a book's introduction and then throwing the book away.

And you cannot deny that he is happy and successful. He says so all the time.

>> No.6526257

>>6526249
>DO I ASK /LIT/ BEFORE I READ EACH PAGE????
Oh oh! I want to do this. Will you guys help me? Pwease?

>> No.6526259

>>6526251
...yes I know? That was what I was saying?

>> No.6526265

>>6526119

>he thinks that knowledge will make him a happier, sucessfull and smarter than before

>he is desperate for getting knowledge

>> No.6526269

>>6526259
wait.. I thought you were the guy defending... Never mind

>> No.6526277

>>6526265
It really does do that, though. It's more of a realization you make after it's had that effect on you.

>> No.6526279

>>6526245
Thanks that helps.

>> No.6526281

>>6526084
reading is overrated

>> No.6526291

>>6526240
>that book choice

No shit he gets through that quickly.

>> No.6526313

The best approach for non fiction is to raid the wikipedia articles or websites for most topics, and lovingly study the books widely agreed to be deserving of study.

>> No.6526317
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6526317

OP, you might be right. As much as I love nonfiction, my completionism slows my progress from topic to topic.

But I kind of doubt the feasibility of your panning-for-nuggets strategy, because a reader doesn't really know what of their text is valuable until after the text is read.

>> No.6526325

>>6526084
Although any content created by humans only contains 2% of valuable information, while 98% is useless or recycled trash, it's far more interesting for me to tear an author, editor, and writer's work(s) apart to see exactly what went wrong, when/where, why/how, and to recreate it without all the useless, pedantic, flowery bullshit in the way.

I would like to know, rather than entirely dismissing hokum as hokum, what the process is for deciding which of the 100% of work(s) is the 2% v. the other 98%, according to this sensationalist hack. Of course, as with anything else sending out a mass/attempted viral marketing vibe, I wouldn't pay any derivation of a dollar to know.

>> No.6526338

>>6526313
I subscribe to this idea. However,

>lovingly study the books widely agreed to be deserving of study

tips for how to identify which books are widely agreed to be deserving of study? Do I need to look at university syllabi? Everytime I ask online for nonfiction suggestions, everyone fights about author biases. Should I just get Cambridge texts?

>> No.6526347

>>6526325
Mark Goldie is a scholar at Cambridge who gave me this advice as an undergraduate. He isn't the huckster that has been linked to elsewhere in this thread.

The process for raiding a text begins with reading the introductory chapter to understand the over-arching purpose of the text and its structure, identifying the most contentious or pivotal chapters upon which the argument as a whole rests, and then skimming those chapters to see the evidence and evaulate if it holds up.

>> No.6526354

>>6526338
follow your own bias

and occasionally check with the other side(s) to confirm it further

>> No.6526359

So what if I read the dictionary?

>> No.6526361

>>6526317
My guess is that that is only the case if the reader is too inexperienced to know how/what to look for.

>> No.6526365

Look, faggot, the most effective way would actually be to read it slowly, taking notes or highlighting. After every big change of topic quickly summarize in your head (or outloud) what just went on. Rereading the work evey while (probably couple years or something) would also be optimal.
Now, most people dont do this because most people dont need to be scholars on the texts that they read, but this is definitely the most effective way of learning from a text.

>> No.6526370

>>6526359
Then you will know all the words and therefore all the knowledge of the world.

>> No.6526385

>>6526347
Thanks for passing on this advice. Seems sound.

>> No.6526397

>>6526347
Introduction/Abstract, Table of Contents, and specifically-noted chapters or segments, nearly always including the Conclusion was my methodology for determining the 2%. I suppose I owe you, or Mark Goldie, an apology for the assumption you were on about that marketing hack.

My apologies, as well as thanks, anon.
You've made me happy there are others capable of thinking beyond the norm.

>> No.6526410

>>6526118
>>6526119

fools, i pity you

>> No.6526417

>>6526119

if you do not enjoy acquiring knowledge and you think some knowledge to be objectively more "important" than other you are the essence of a pedestrian and should leave this board immedeatly.

>> No.6526425

>>6526251

>you cannot deny that he is happy and successful. He says so all the time.

this is so unbelievably dumb.

"india and pakistan don't have nuclear weapons you dolt, their representatives say so all the time!"

"this bean really is magic you idiot, the vendor told me so!"

"i'm not a faggot, stop calling me that. the pastor told me i was merely confused!"

>> No.6526439

>>6526347

Everyone who has ever gone to university has been given that advice when dealing with scientific sources. In order to understand a text that is very challenging in both matter and language you will obviously have to read it more than once and therefore can skip a lot of the "unnecessary" parts. How this is worthy of a thread I have no fucking idea, how this devalues fiction is beyond me.

>> No.6526446

>>6526119
Hahaha... Well philistined my friend!

>> No.6526513

>>6526439
The university I went to paraded how much "we of the scientific community need to prove, with viable evidence, to our peers that our endeavors are worthwhile" which translated to "change your position on a topic until people like it and give you money." I'm not saying that because that's my interpretation, and I'm spiteful toward that particular professor or his "scientific community." I say that because he would mention tricks of the trade, which somehow always included revising one's theory until the majority accepts it rather than trying to prove something, failing, and moving on. He, and many of the professors, were very status-oriented as opposed to results-oriented, and considered scientists successful only if they were popularly acknowledged, paid well, or in high-status positions. Perhaps that is why I had heard of none of them prior to taking their courses.

We certainly learned nothing of cutting out unnecessary portions of reading. I envy you for your vastly different experiences in those regards.

>> No.6526665

yeah I pretty much agree OP. Non-fiction authors tend to go off on tangents or repeat themselves five times in narrative and I just don't give a fuck. I get your point, the information has been transmitted, shut up. Most recent offenders are Simulacra & Simulation and The Ego Tunnel.

>> No.6526835

>>6526665
gotta fill and entire book...

>> No.6526863

>>6526119
It sounds like you're describing a philistine.

>> No.6526881

If i "raided" a book I would literally forget all that information the next week

fuck off

>> No.6526893

most fiction books are just as underedited as non-fiction books

I think the problem is mostly that editors get scared of authors if they have any sort of fame or popularity that they do their job less well

>> No.6528493

>>6526439
>How this is worthy of a thread I have no fucking idea, how this devalues fiction is beyond me.

1) It's worthy of a thread because 'there are actually people on this board who read non-fiction books cover-to-cover'.

2) I never said it devalued fiction books. You need to imrpove your raiding skills, friend, since you are accidentally projecting slurs where none exist.

>> No.6528671

>>6526091
You are reading for completely the wrong reason then. Do you not just enjoy the act of reading itself?

>> No.6529608

>>6528671

OP is 100% right. I only read non-fiction cover to cover if I'm absolutely in love with the subject.

>> No.6529632
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6529632

“The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.”

― Nietzsche

>> No.6529633

>>6526835
>spooks

>> No.6529638

agreed.

Only none-fiction worth really getting everything some philosophers like you said

>> No.6529672

>>6526084
How are you supposed to evaluate works of history if you're just quarrying them for data and not checking the footnotes?

>> No.6529729

>>6529632
Sad thing is, 99% of Nietzsche readings are done like that

>> No.6529801

>>6526084

But how do you know you're not missing something important?

>> No.6529828

>>6526084
>The vast majority
Read better non-fiction then? It's mostly shite anyway so I never read it unless I happen to find something that's actually really interesting for once.

>> No.6530422

>>6526425
ANNOUNCEMENT:
YOU ARE REPLYING TO "IRONIC" BAIT

>> No.6530427

>>6526084
How do you know which parts of the book are worth "raiding" and which parts aren't until you have read the whole thing?