Books, especially non-fiction books, are big investments in terms of time and attention.
Before I came across a book called "How to Read a Book" [1], my philosophy was to simply to read book that's recommended to me and simply finish it - there must be something from the book that is of value. After reading HTRAB I realised that time spent reading a bad book is time not spent reading a good one. Thus I want to be better at assessing a book before I actually decide to read it.
"How to Read a Book" also suggests "Systematic skimming", which involves (some personal steps in the list):
- Reading the preface
- Reading the Table of Contents
- Checking the Index - Searching for a topic I might know a little bit about, and checking what the book says about that topic
- For books that rely on research (most (pop)sci/political books), I usually check the quantity of sources at the back of the book - however I am not sure how to check for the quality of those sources. I wonder if there is a website where I can put in ISBN and it gives me a "sources quality score"?
- Skip to a random chapter, read a page or two
- Search stackexchange/HN if for any mentions of the book to see what other people say about it
- Look up Author(s) and what they are about
What do you think? Any suggestions, additions to this list? How do you decide it?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book
Before I came across a book called "How to Read a Book" [1], my philosophy was to simply to read book that's recommended to me and simply finish it - there must be something from the book that is of value. After reading HTRAB I realised that time spent reading a bad book is time not spent reading a good one. Thus I want to be better at assessing a book before I actually decide to read it.
"How to Read a Book" also suggests "Systematic skimming", which involves (some personal steps in the list):
- Reading the preface
- Reading the Table of Contents
- Checking the Index - Searching for a topic I might know a little bit about, and checking what the book says about that topic
- For books that rely on research (most (pop)sci/political books), I usually check the quantity of sources at the back of the book - however I am not sure how to check for the quality of those sources. I wonder if there is a website where I can put in ISBN and it gives me a "sources quality score"?
- Skip to a random chapter, read a page or two
- Search stackexchange/HN if for any mentions of the book to see what other people say about it
- Look up Author(s) and what they are about
What do you think? Any suggestions, additions to this list? How do you decide it?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book