I used to read a lot of books. I’m a fast reader and could go through a few in a weekend. I think I slowed down on the reading when I became a mother and never had enough time to really get into anything. I like to read in one sitting or two, rather than in small segments. I also used to read more when I didn’t have instant access to great thinkers. Now that I do, I am beginning to believe I no longer value non-fiction the way I used to.
When I think about the process and time it takes for a book to move from an original thought to a published volume, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I realize this doesn’t apply to all books. Historical and biographical pieces are probably good exceptions, as are research findings. However, any book describing some new trend in business, technology or education, has me questioning why it needs to be in book format. When someone has a new idea or theory, I just don’t understand keeping it to themselves until it is fully developed enough to become a publication.
I do believe individuals can have great ideas and even influence world change, but I feel there’s greater value in sharing the ideas, gathering feedback, refining concepts, reflecting and revising. Agile book development? I also don’t understand how all these books fit the same format and structure. If they’re so original, why are they edited down or fluffed up to all be about the same size? I think I no longer have the attention span to read fluffed up chopped up ideas that were original at conception years earlier, but are now compromised by the publishing process.
Another reason I don’t read them, is that I’ve got a great network of filters. Not only do I get reviews and commentary on books, I get to observe reflective application of principles, including examples of success and failure. It’s highly possible that the books are processed like mad, published, purchased, read, applied and then re-purposed by readers who strip away the garbage and discover the original concept. I want to get the information from these people!
It’s just a bunch of words. The meaning I extract from them can be completely different from the next reader or even from the author’s intent. I don’t want to create meaning on my own based on text as the only input. I need more. Social media has made me crave more human connection to text. Text from an individual, filtered by editors and constrained by publishing standards no longer holds the same value to me as text taken apart, stretched, fragmented, tested, filtered, and re-used by people I trust and admire.
Since I’ve not been reading, I don’t suppose I’m even qualified to judge new publications. So tell me what you’ve read that I shouldn’t live without. What will make me desire to read more?
I still read – but not nearly as much as I used to. Not sure what that means…
As for the impact of the Network on reading – maybe you’re taking value from the books (and other content) that has been distilled into the people that make up your Network. So, your extended online brain still has some form of many books in there somewhere, colouring the stuff that goes through it…
I think you have been reading even though they are not printed books.
There are some books I have to read two or three times because everytime I read them are different. I like to read in The Internet, too.
If I have to recommend something to read I think it could be novels and poetry. Let me explain, I’m always reading about Pedagogy, Technology, teaching ideas and visiting sites related to learning that I like to read something different. It makes me more creative and aware of feelings.
Regards
angelesb
Thanks for posting this! I’ve been feeling a little guilty as I also find that I’m not reading as much as I used to, and I’m not sure of the reason why. I do find that I get more of what I need when I need it (more just-in-time, if you will). And I want it distilled down, sans fluff. My Twitter network, Google reader, and other sources have become a large part of my learning.
I know that as busy as I am and with the few minutes that I have to devote to professional reading, I won’t read a book unless I’ve read something that really peak my interest, like an article or summary. s
I think the main reason I stopped reading so much is now 7 years old. When I started having more time to read, I found I was reading blogs more than anything else because they were so vital, immediate and interactive. I loved that I could leave a comment to question and connect with the author – more like conversations than traditional text.
Books you shouldn’t live without? I’m partial to “Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance” or “Amusing Ourselves to Death”. If you want fiction, read anything – no, make that read *everything* by Neil Gaiman. I think “American Gods” is absolute genius.
I don’t read books as much as I used to because I’m on the computer so much. I guess I like mindless reading when I’m readint things like fiction and not nonfiction. I like romance novels where the endings are happy because I like to imagine a real world where there are always happy endings.
I read online blogs, wikis, and other posts, but I still read books.
I enjoy fiction like the Harry Potter series and the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich because they transport me to another world. I like playing the first line “game” where I open a book at Barnes and Noble or the library that catches my eye and then read the first line. If it is funny, interesting, or intriguing, the book usually goes home with me.
Recently, I have begun to read more non-fiction such as Strengthsfinder 2.0, A Whole New Mind, and The World is Flat. All of these books relate to how our reading habits are shifting due to the Internet and globalization. i have also recently read Classroom Blogging by David Warlick. His book shares different ideas from his blog posts so I felt I needed to read it. BTW, he used lulu.com to self-publish to avoid the lag time in the usual publishing world.
Laurie
Maybe the publishing
One wonders in an age of Google Readers and RSS feeds why one would buy a non-fiction book anymore? Yet Clay Shirky’s HERE COMES EVERYBODY connected with me stronger than any post this past year. Clay even noted that he had trouble keeping up, as Twitter came out while he was writing the book. But even with all the online tools, there is something magical about highlighting and marking in margins in a hardbound book.
I still read to help me fall asleep:)
Reading John Grisham’s newest book, The Appeal, via our local library. It’s horrible. I always loved Grisham when I was younger but since I read so much excellent writing and thinking through my RSS and Twitter links, have just come to realize how bad of a book (or writer) this actually is.
Still, I like transferring to a place that is completely made up of images in my mind, only fiction books seem to do that for me.
Noticing a bit of a pattern here. I also do not read as much as I once did. Although my personal library tops 2000 books, I haven’t read much since the birth of twins about 8 years ago, and almost concurrently, my wife’s diagnosis of MS further reduced available time for reading. Being able to use RSS feeds,twitter, and other social media tools has been invaluable. Using open source software and Linux allowed me to use machines others have discarded to create a network that places these tools in easy reach no matter where I am. Still there are times when I force myself to take some time out and grab a physical book and, pencil in hand, read and annotate. I would highly recomend the following: “Mobilizing Minds- Creating Wealth From Talent in the 21st Century Organization” by Bryan and Joyce, “The Naked Corporation -How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business” by Tapscott and Ticoll, and just about anything by Peter Drucker going back to “The Age of Discontinuity” that although written in 1969 delivers deeper insight into what is going on with the information/knowledge revolution than almost anything else I have ever read. The message for educators is especially interesting. Consider this quote from 1969.
“We are heading straight into a pedagogic crisis. The college students who are in open rebellion against the educational establishment everywhere, no longer consider the classroom “relevant”! And irrelevance is the worst thing one can say about education. Worse still, today’s small children are bored stiff by school. Small children cannot rebel by occupying the school or by building barricades in the street. They have, however, a much more potent weapon: they can stop learning. And this is what the generation now reaching school age is apparently about to do every place. It has become accustomed to a standard of effectiveness in communications that makes unendurable the low educational productivity of the typical classroom”
If you added in a few buzz words like “digital native” or the “net generation”, this quote would seem right at home in many of the edtech blogs I have read. I am very glad I took the time to read through that book, and some of Drucker’s more recent related books that are like follow ups. Just my 2 cents.
I wrote a book on social software in libraries that came out last year. I was a bit hesitant myself when the publisher asked me to write a book on the topic, because I feel so much of what I wrote about was already being discussed all over the blogosphere and at conferences (and this sort of stuff changes SO much more quickly than traditional publishing can keep up with). But the people who read blogs and go to tech conferences were not the people I was writing for. I think there are still a lot of people (at least in librarianship) who don’t have an online network and still keep up through books and journals. For them, having a filter who takes all of the stuff from blogs and wikis and podcasts and conferences and puts it into book form is ideal. They don’t want to look in 20 places to get this information; they just want to be able to crack open a book at the point of need and get information on that topic.
I don’t blame them for that attitude, but it’s not how I am at all. I love the conversation, the various points of view. I love sharing knowledge on my blog and getting immediate feedback. I love defending my ideas and reflecting on what I’ve learned. I write for a very different audience when I write journal articles and books than when I write blog posts. And I must admit that I like writing blog posts more because with books and journal articles, you frequently never get that feedback, you never start a conversation. It IS a very different dynamic.
I read a lot more than I used to, but, like you, it’s not books. I think once you become part of a really participatory online community, it’s hard to go back to JUST reading and not participating.
I haven’t read a great deal of books in the last few years but yesterday ordered 3 online. Feeling a need to get that feeling of a good book (hopefully I purchased wisely) in my hands.
I do read books. I was an English major, but easily 80% of what I read between covers is nonfiction. I don’t think I read much that you can’t live without, but that’s because (a) I don’t know you and (b) I rarely think I know what others can’t live without.
Two of the main genres I read are history and biography. As you suggest, to some extent they’re settled, though the best of these tend to overturn what had been seen as the last word. I like the depth, and in particular I like primary sources. What did Charles de Gaulle say? How did printers and booksellers in the sixteenth century react to their amazing new technology?
I read a lot of popularized science (though I’m not sure Eric Kandel’s In Search of Memory would strike everyone as that popular. As with Time, Love, Memory (about the dawn of genetics), Kandel’s book sweeps you from the past to the present — in his case, a lot of what we knew and know about how the brain learns. I liked finding out about the relatively few and relatively large neurons of the sea slug Aplysia, which Kandel and his team studied for more than 15 years.
So: there’s richness of detail, there’s the extended exposure, there’s the ready access (I know where to find the passages that really struck me).
Unique to physical books? No. Better? Not necessarily, but it’s not a comparison I make anyway.
Other prominent exceptions would be a lot of science and nature writing. There’s also a whole world out there of personal essays and creative nonfiction.
But really, technology enables life, art makes life worth living… why not pick up a few good, big novels, a collection of short stories, some Ancient Greek philosophers, the Dammapada, a book of poems. There’s more in just about any single good example in those areas that in all the tech books, books on economics, books on current politics, and pop culture books you can carry!