A whole vector for receiving new ideas, perspectives, expression, experiences.
Some stories can’t easily be translated to another medium. House of Leaves, for example, is very much a Book, and trying to translate it to some other medium would result in a very different item.
It also helps improve communication skills in general. You’ll see a variety of ways to put sentences and ideas together, and you can use that yourself. A lot of marketing and blog posts are targeting a 6th grade reading level. Authors there aren’t typically aiming for complexity or richness of prose.
Ah, I remember House of Leaves. I can’t say I was particularly into the story itself, but it was an interesting experience. Very immersive book.
On the topic of complexity / richness of prose, is the value of that mainly artistic? I’ve always aimed to make my writing as simple and concise as possible to aid in communication. Complexity and richness seem to go against this goal.
Even if the value was only “artistic”, I think that is valuable. I don’t especially want to live in a world void of art.
But while concise and simple language has its place, being able to express and understand more complex constructions seems valuable. Do you want to live in a world where no one expresses themselves with more depth than “See spot. See spot run.”? The world is complex and being able to communicate in different ways seems valuable. Hitting a clever sentence can be an inspiration for thinking more.
By contrast, look at 1984 and the dystopian collapsing of language. As words are removed and grammatical structures lost, it becomes harder to express some ideas.
Ironically, I don’t think I’m going a great job communicating my point. Let me try again. Simplicity and sparseness have value in some places, like instruction manuals, but richer language is worthwhile in many other contexts.
Different worldviews, new ways to reason about existing issues, raised awareness of other problems, cultures, people. And straight out more knowledge about many things (even if you read only fiction). Overall, you can move forward from a perhaps more simplistic version of the world.
Also, just the increased ability to read and understand stuff should not be underestimated. Many people can read, as in putting letters together to form words, but not read in the sense of understanding anything beyond the most basic of sentences. You’ll get scammed less often. get better deals, etc.
Overall, you can move forward from a perhaps more simplistic version of the world.
This feels very elitist, like you have a better and deeper understanding of the world just because you read books. I can tell you that it’s not that simple
It is not simple, but honestly in this day and age of extremely swiftly-consumed content that is often made to be as concise as possible, books bring a deeper, more long-form perspective on many things where other media can’t (or at least very rarely) do the same.
But of course it also depends what books you’re reading or what other media you’re consuming. TikTok vs books is probably clear cut but what about like educational YouTube or something? Not as simple.
Isn’t this post specifically about fiction? When we say that a person “reads”, it normally means fiction. Plus, I don’t think anything else is typically measured in number of books.
I guess what I mean to ask is: what we can gain from reading works of fiction over other forms of text? Would you give the same answer given the clarification?
What else do you read that can be measured in number of books? You wouldn’t do that for news articles, blog posts, or scientific papers. Cookbooks, textbooks and dictionaries are books, but you rarely read those from cover to cover, so you wouldn’t see people talking about the number of books they’ve read in that context.
Ah, right. Sorry about that. I’m just thinking through all the things I’ve read in the recent months and looking through my bookshelf. Seems our reading habits here are rather narrow.
What else do you read that can be measured in number of books?
Non fiction obviously? You know, books about the world and stuff. Recently I read Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harrari for instance. That is not fiction and it is a book.
On one hand I get your point, but on another if you spend most of your time learning (but through other formats than books: through quality online articles or videos, and not eBooks) then it does not seem so bad to me.
I am reading nearly 24/7 but I complete a full actual book maybe once a year. Might be bigger if you count the books that have also (legally) been wholly posted online, but I often forget them because I read them just like an extra-long article: on my phone. I read peoples’ original fiction that they post online so I’m not sure whether to count it or not.
I like longer articles but I do admit that I consume so much less long-form content than I did as a child. At least I avoid TikTok and Reels and the like? (Not to be elitist, but because I know I specifically would get addicted and waste my life. Very bad for my particular ADHD brain.) Also something something possible link between lower attention spans and only consuming short-form content. So I get the general gist of your idea and agree even if I do not particularly agree with the emphasis on the medium of books.
Those are sad numbers. Should be 100%.
For those of us who don’t read, what do you feel that we’re missing out on?
A whole vector for receiving new ideas, perspectives, expression, experiences.
Some stories can’t easily be translated to another medium. House of Leaves, for example, is very much a Book, and trying to translate it to some other medium would result in a very different item.
It also helps improve communication skills in general. You’ll see a variety of ways to put sentences and ideas together, and you can use that yourself. A lot of marketing and blog posts are targeting a 6th grade reading level. Authors there aren’t typically aiming for complexity or richness of prose.
Ah, I remember House of Leaves. I can’t say I was particularly into the story itself, but it was an interesting experience. Very immersive book.
On the topic of complexity / richness of prose, is the value of that mainly artistic? I’ve always aimed to make my writing as simple and concise as possible to aid in communication. Complexity and richness seem to go against this goal.
Even if the value was only “artistic”, I think that is valuable. I don’t especially want to live in a world void of art.
But while concise and simple language has its place, being able to express and understand more complex constructions seems valuable. Do you want to live in a world where no one expresses themselves with more depth than “See spot. See spot run.”? The world is complex and being able to communicate in different ways seems valuable. Hitting a clever sentence can be an inspiration for thinking more.
By contrast, look at 1984 and the dystopian collapsing of language. As words are removed and grammatical structures lost, it becomes harder to express some ideas.
Ironically, I don’t think I’m going a great job communicating my point. Let me try again. Simplicity and sparseness have value in some places, like instruction manuals, but richer language is worthwhile in many other contexts.
Different worldviews, new ways to reason about existing issues, raised awareness of other problems, cultures, people. And straight out more knowledge about many things (even if you read only fiction). Overall, you can move forward from a perhaps more simplistic version of the world.
Also, just the increased ability to read and understand stuff should not be underestimated. Many people can read, as in putting letters together to form words, but not read in the sense of understanding anything beyond the most basic of sentences. You’ll get scammed less often. get better deals, etc.
This feels very elitist, like you have a better and deeper understanding of the world just because you read books. I can tell you that it’s not that simple
It is not simple, but honestly in this day and age of extremely swiftly-consumed content that is often made to be as concise as possible, books bring a deeper, more long-form perspective on many things where other media can’t (or at least very rarely) do the same.
But of course it also depends what books you’re reading or what other media you’re consuming. TikTok vs books is probably clear cut but what about like educational YouTube or something? Not as simple.
@EddoWagt
But reading is the very best way for a deeper understanding of the world.
@InfiniteFlow
Isn’t this post specifically about fiction? When we say that a person “reads”, it normally means fiction. Plus, I don’t think anything else is typically measured in number of books.
I guess what I mean to ask is: what we can gain from reading works of fiction over other forms of text? Would you give the same answer given the clarification?
I don’t see anything suggesting this is fiction only and I definitely don’t think “reads” means “reads fiction”.
What else do you read that can be measured in number of books? You wouldn’t do that for news articles, blog posts, or scientific papers. Cookbooks, textbooks and dictionaries are books, but you rarely read those from cover to cover, so you wouldn’t see people talking about the number of books they’ve read in that context.
I can’t tell if you’re trolling or if you just haven’t visited a library or bookstore in a while, but non-fiction books come to mind?
Sorry, I’m dumb. I do go to libraries quite often, but if I’m looking at the books, it’s to find something specific. I never browse the shelves.
Hey no worries, we all have those moments 😂
Did you forget that non-fiction exists as a genre? Biographies and memoirs are very popular, for example.
Ah, right. Sorry about that. I’m just thinking through all the things I’ve read in the recent months and looking through my bookshelf. Seems our reading habits here are rather narrow.
Non fiction obviously? You know, books about the world and stuff. Recently I read Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harrari for instance. That is not fiction and it is a book.
On one hand I get your point, but on another if you spend most of your time learning (but through other formats than books: through quality online articles or videos, and not eBooks) then it does not seem so bad to me.
I am reading nearly 24/7 but I complete a full actual book maybe once a year. Might be bigger if you count the books that have also (legally) been wholly posted online, but I often forget them because I read them just like an extra-long article: on my phone. I read peoples’ original fiction that they post online so I’m not sure whether to count it or not.
I like longer articles but I do admit that I consume so much less long-form content than I did as a child. At least I avoid TikTok and Reels and the like? (Not to be elitist, but because I know I specifically would get addicted and waste my life. Very bad for my particular ADHD brain.) Also something something possible link between lower attention spans and only consuming short-form content. So I get the general gist of your idea and agree even if I do not particularly agree with the emphasis on the medium of books.
You make a valid point. So long as a person is reading regularly, and not just social media posts, I’m satisfied in this regard.