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A comment on Ask HN: How do you balance reading books vs. articles. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: How do you balance reading books vs. articles by gregmac on Sunday December 06, 2020 @01:42PM (#25325526)
I've read too many of the first that lately it has killed most of my motivation to read any non-fiction books (the last couple I started, I just never finished because essentially I got bored). I enjoy reading (and still read fiction), and I want to have that motivation, but I just can't seem to muster it. This includes books that have good reviews, because apparently a lot of people don't seem to mind. It just seems like there's a lot of people writing books because it's "the thing to do" and probably makes more money than the couple blog posts or long article that would have been a better format.

Anyone else experience this, and how did you get past it?

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Re:Ask HN: How do you balance reading books vs. articles by benjaminogles on Sunday December 06, 2020 @02:06PM (#25325735)
I experienced the same thing. Waiting for recommendations from similarly minded people helped me get past it.

I didn't read any non-fiction for a long time before I was given a book as a gift [0] that was really good. Since then, I have received a few other recommendations that I enjoyed [1-2].

[0] Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell

[1] Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths

[2] The Theoretical Minimum Series by Leonard Susskind

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Re:Ask HN: How do you balance reading books vs. articles by edjrage on Sunday December 06, 2020 @02:38PM (#25326014)
Honestly, you've already identified the problem (reading books of the "first kind"), so you know what to do. Stop picking up books just because they're best sellers. That would be a great start.
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Re:Ask HN: How do you balance reading books vs. articles by bordercases on Sunday December 06, 2020 @04:41PM (#25326925)
You could take it a step further and read academic reviews, which are about the size of a book chapter but are otherwise meant to be self-contained pieces of writing on a topic.
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Re:Ask HN: How do you balance reading books vs. articles by infinityplus1 on Sunday December 06, 2020 @02:07PM (#25325744)
You are overthinking this. Some people just like reading those books and you don't. It's personal preference. Just try reading new genres you haven't given a chance before and maybe you will find something interesting.
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