Sometimes you hear praise of book reviews that goes something like this: "This review did its job: it convinced me to purchase the book!". This criterion has an obvious logic: The review successfully conveyed that a book was interesting enough to be worth the reader’s time.
I'm a little surprised how therapeutic reading this was. I really needed somebody to give me a good reason to not stress about all the important non-fiction that I haven't read - I probably already have gotten the most important ideas from the most influental books already. The main stress-reducing idea I got from this is treating reading non-fiction books like verifying the information in the primary source. I'm definitely going to appreciate second-hand information about books, like book reviews, even more than I did before. I really appreciate you having done this review about Bayard's book (HB++)
Thank you for this review! Without really thinking about it (except to occasionally feel guilty that I'm acting like I've read a book I haven't) I've long approached reading from this perspective. There are a great deal of authors I understand well from hearing them referenced over and over, and on the flip side, many primary sources I read and would have been lost in if not for some kind soul's background and annotations. Sometimes I feel nihilistic, pondering the immense mass of books around me that I'll never reach – and why should I ever want to contribute, when there's far more worthwhile things than I could ever produce? – but viewing the world of books (and blogs, etc.) as a conversation greater than each individual tome is both more heartening and, I think, truer. For one example of collaborative reading: recently I saw a deeply annoying and poorly written book getting praised to Heaven and back on Twitter. I immediately knew the leftist tradition the author was coming from, and had in fact met a person or two like him before. I tried reading the book and couldn't get more than a few pages in, the writing was so bad, but I told my girlfriend and she read the whole thing. She took notes and told me about it and we wrote a review together. Through her notes I identified the pop science the author had engaged with (on the most surface of surface levels) because I had seen that pop science, and the misinterpretations, thereof. It was the most I've ever read a book without reading it, though the shallowness helped. A lot.
"The protagonist, English detective Baskerville (an homage to Sherlock Holmes), figures out the mystery without fully reading the pivotal item at the center of it: Aristotle’s Poetics"
In the novel, it's William of Baskerville, and he's referred to most often as William or Brother William.
Perhaps, though, I'm succumbing to David Lodge's syndrome: ". . . Lodge wrote to Bayard pointing out that he got a plot point wrong in Lodge’s Small World. Bayard would have chuckled: Like all good non-readers, Lodge must have skipped the bit where Bayard explains he makes changes."
This review did its job: it convinced me ~~not~~ to purchase the book!
I rather enjoyed reading about this, it was somewhat validating to see that it's ok to just read Scott Alexander's reviews and feel like I get a book. This review in particular felt like one of those times where the review is so good that I don't even need to read the book itself. Looking forward to talking about this particular book I haven't read!
Um. This would perhaps be helped by talking about different types of books. As far as I can tell, the entire literary arts are glossed over with "just seeking enjoyment", which might be a tad short.
Some books definitely have one idea and a lot of waffle around it. The goal of publishing the book is indeed to get the idea into popular culture (or a relevant subculture), with the actual book as a byproduct, and it sure makes way more sense to look at the cultural reactions.
Serious non-fiction books are mainly textbooks and long reference works; they're not meant to be read cover to cover in the first place. Old works in sciences, history, etc. can be replaced with newer shinier presentations of the same facts with no loss.
But how do you not-read a volume of poetry? Sure, you can say it's about ageing and longing for the sublime and doubts about Christian faith, you can talk about the author's life and fame, you can relate it to literary movements and other poems inspiring it or inspired by it. I guess you could read short summaries of each poem. But none of that is particularly relevant to the poems.
This roughly maps to the fiction-nonfiction split. Okay, some nonfiction has or tries to have literary merit and could be read on that ground, but usually it muddles the message and I wish they'd cut it out.
A subtler reason to read a book rather than its summary is that many books try to transmit a mindset, not just a small collection of ideas. Those are hard to express in words and impossible to teach in few words, so it makes sense to go to the source, although in theory it's possible that someone somewhere has understood it and written another version that might work better for you.
IMO, feeling like you *should* read a book is a scourge, and if this theory of not-reading can cure it, then it's all to the good. I'm sorry you didn't like _Infinite Jest_, and sorrier that you wasted time on it despite that.
I agree fiction and non-fiction should be thought of a little differently. My review was probably biased towards non-fiction as that was most of my reading diet. Probably like most ACX readers.
As you suggest, poetry seems like something you need to consume directly. The form is an essential part of product. I'm unsure if Bayard would still bite that non-reading bullet.
Interestingly, most of Bayard's examples were fiction. He very much thinks that it's valuable to talk about books like Hamlet, and Brothers Karamazov, and Infinite Jest, and The Stranger without having read them.
The best fiction has implicit knowledge which, almost by definition, is hard to gain without reading it. Knowing that Infinite Jest is about our struggles with addiction and instant gratification is different to reading it and feeling that theme seep into your nerve endings.
But Bayard's argument isn't simply to read summaries. It's to talk about the books, a creative act in itself. There's still much value to be gained from doing so with other smart people (hopefully some of which have read some of the book).
> He’s a proponent of implementing a spaced repetition system as a strategy to help remember what we’ve read
I've used this strategy extensively for the content from books that I found most interesting and also build a startup to solve this problem: https://remnote.com
I'm a little surprised how therapeutic reading this was. I really needed somebody to give me a good reason to not stress about all the important non-fiction that I haven't read - I probably already have gotten the most important ideas from the most influental books already. The main stress-reducing idea I got from this is treating reading non-fiction books like verifying the information in the primary source. I'm definitely going to appreciate second-hand information about books, like book reviews, even more than I did before. I really appreciate you having done this review about Bayard's book (HB++)
Thank you for this review! Without really thinking about it (except to occasionally feel guilty that I'm acting like I've read a book I haven't) I've long approached reading from this perspective. There are a great deal of authors I understand well from hearing them referenced over and over, and on the flip side, many primary sources I read and would have been lost in if not for some kind soul's background and annotations. Sometimes I feel nihilistic, pondering the immense mass of books around me that I'll never reach – and why should I ever want to contribute, when there's far more worthwhile things than I could ever produce? – but viewing the world of books (and blogs, etc.) as a conversation greater than each individual tome is both more heartening and, I think, truer. For one example of collaborative reading: recently I saw a deeply annoying and poorly written book getting praised to Heaven and back on Twitter. I immediately knew the leftist tradition the author was coming from, and had in fact met a person or two like him before. I tried reading the book and couldn't get more than a few pages in, the writing was so bad, but I told my girlfriend and she read the whole thing. She took notes and told me about it and we wrote a review together. Through her notes I identified the pop science the author had engaged with (on the most surface of surface levels) because I had seen that pop science, and the misinterpretations, thereof. It was the most I've ever read a book without reading it, though the shallowness helped. A lot.
"The protagonist, English detective Baskerville (an homage to Sherlock Holmes), figures out the mystery without fully reading the pivotal item at the center of it: Aristotle’s Poetics"
In the novel, it's William of Baskerville, and he's referred to most often as William or Brother William.
Perhaps, though, I'm succumbing to David Lodge's syndrome: ". . . Lodge wrote to Bayard pointing out that he got a plot point wrong in Lodge’s Small World. Bayard would have chuckled: Like all good non-readers, Lodge must have skipped the bit where Bayard explains he makes changes."
Haha. Would've helped if I had read the book!
This review did its job: it convinced me ~~not~~ to purchase the book!
I rather enjoyed reading about this, it was somewhat validating to see that it's ok to just read Scott Alexander's reviews and feel like I get a book. This review in particular felt like one of those times where the review is so good that I don't even need to read the book itself. Looking forward to talking about this particular book I haven't read!
Um. This would perhaps be helped by talking about different types of books. As far as I can tell, the entire literary arts are glossed over with "just seeking enjoyment", which might be a tad short.
Some books definitely have one idea and a lot of waffle around it. The goal of publishing the book is indeed to get the idea into popular culture (or a relevant subculture), with the actual book as a byproduct, and it sure makes way more sense to look at the cultural reactions.
Serious non-fiction books are mainly textbooks and long reference works; they're not meant to be read cover to cover in the first place. Old works in sciences, history, etc. can be replaced with newer shinier presentations of the same facts with no loss.
But how do you not-read a volume of poetry? Sure, you can say it's about ageing and longing for the sublime and doubts about Christian faith, you can talk about the author's life and fame, you can relate it to literary movements and other poems inspiring it or inspired by it. I guess you could read short summaries of each poem. But none of that is particularly relevant to the poems.
This roughly maps to the fiction-nonfiction split. Okay, some nonfiction has or tries to have literary merit and could be read on that ground, but usually it muddles the message and I wish they'd cut it out.
A subtler reason to read a book rather than its summary is that many books try to transmit a mindset, not just a small collection of ideas. Those are hard to express in words and impossible to teach in few words, so it makes sense to go to the source, although in theory it's possible that someone somewhere has understood it and written another version that might work better for you.
IMO, feeling like you *should* read a book is a scourge, and if this theory of not-reading can cure it, then it's all to the good. I'm sorry you didn't like _Infinite Jest_, and sorrier that you wasted time on it despite that.
I agree fiction and non-fiction should be thought of a little differently. My review was probably biased towards non-fiction as that was most of my reading diet. Probably like most ACX readers.
As you suggest, poetry seems like something you need to consume directly. The form is an essential part of product. I'm unsure if Bayard would still bite that non-reading bullet.
Interestingly, most of Bayard's examples were fiction. He very much thinks that it's valuable to talk about books like Hamlet, and Brothers Karamazov, and Infinite Jest, and The Stranger without having read them.
The best fiction has implicit knowledge which, almost by definition, is hard to gain without reading it. Knowing that Infinite Jest is about our struggles with addiction and instant gratification is different to reading it and feeling that theme seep into your nerve endings.
But Bayard's argument isn't simply to read summaries. It's to talk about the books, a creative act in itself. There's still much value to be gained from doing so with other smart people (hopefully some of which have read some of the book).
> He’s a proponent of implementing a spaced repetition system as a strategy to help remember what we’ve read
I've used this strategy extensively for the content from books that I found most interesting and also build a startup to solve this problem: https://remnote.com