I still do read books, but I gotta say that online text competes with and has taken a serious toll on my book-reading.
this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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I've found you have to build a habit around it. Read at a certain time of the day (or after a certain task) and do it consistently, and you'll find the time to do it. Even if it's only 10 minutes a day.
How so? Is the online text as good as what you'd found in books or is it fodder?
Eh, in some ways worse, in some better.
Books have kind of an emphasis on a linear format, and hypertext can be convenient, especially for reference use, and you can't do that in a book. Searchability is nice.
On the other hand, the ownership model of books is handy -- buy it and keep it. Ebooks are the closest equivalent and I wouldn't bet on an eBook being usable 30 years down the line.
There's some content that I can only get in physical books (or at most, ebooks), though.
I still do buy physical books. I'm currently going through a book on the history of military submarines, and last week bought a book on a particular period in US war planning. But the proportion of text I read in pixels is way up, and the proportion that I read on the Web is way up.
There's always https://www.gutenberg.org/ which is the best of both worlds.
It deals with the "'buy' it and keep it" issue, but they only deal with out-of-copyright works, which are usually quite old. Nearly all of what I read will be newer than that.
I've read things there. IIRC, my second reading of Journey to the West, one of the "canonical" Chinese novels, was off Project Gutenberg.
googles
Dunno if it was this translation or another:
https://archive.org/details/journeytothewestwuchengen1592/
...but functionally, they're mostly a complement, rather than a replacement, for commercial works. They kinda fill their own niche.
I wouldn’t bet on an eBook being usable 30 years down the line.
I wouldn't seriously bet on an eBook reader being usable 5 years down the line. Could it? Possibly. Is it guaranteed? Not even close.
As for the content, my SO points out that we have knowledge that was stored on computers in formats nobody alive knows how to read anymore. We've lost information—some of it probably very important!—that's younger than I am.
In the mean time I'm reading stuff that's been gleaned from writing that was recovered literally thousands of years after it disappeared.
Most ebooks are available in unencrypted form, via open formats like epub and mobi. There's no reason they wouldn't be usable in 30 years.
This is the obvious next recommendation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States
This is the kind of book conservatives correctly identify as engendering hate for America. After reading this one, I saw the value of just burning it all down.
Personally I was just happy that at least someone was talking about these things.
Naomi Klein has written a good chunk of books that essentially just put sources and anecdotes to the things I already suspected of the world. It has changed my life both directly and indirectly. Indirectly in that I've come to realize how many of my 'friends' are actually total drones. I love them regardless but I really didn't think I'd be the radical one in my circles- all because I started reading books again at 25.
I will check her books out thank you. And I can relate to the drone remark, working class right wing family repeating wedge issues.
Oh I know exactly what you mean. I'm not dyslexic but do have a reading impediment due to being a visual thinker.
I forced myself to read national geographic from cover to cover for many years. It's quite a thick magazine with a decent level of writing. I've learned so much about the world, it gave me many amazing memories.
After that I was able to pick up some books. I don't read much, but what I read is of a high level. I would've never expected that this is the stuff I'd be reading at my age!
I read Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein right after Manufacturing Consent and I think that worked really well. It's got some overlap in content that helps solidify concepts, but it's a bit more modern and a much easier read (less dry)
Other recommendations
If you have any interest in economics:
- Debt: the last 5000 years by David Graeber
- the Defecit Myth by Stephanie Kelton
If you have interest in digital freedoms and copyright law:
- Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow
- The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow
Thanks, will put Shock Doctrine next on the reading list, and yes Manufacturing Consent feels very dry, I was looking for ways to get through it faster as it reiterates a fair deal.. And thank you for the other recommendation, what is this genera of book called? Social study?
I suspect my local bookshop would stock most of those under "society and politics"
I don't have an answer for you that would help you find more good books, sorry.
Just an invitation to c/poetry for everyone.