Ask HN: How do you balance reading books vs. articles

[yawz]

I’m an avid reader. I have many books going at any given time. I’m also interested in reading articles and blog posts online. But when I spend my time reading articles, I sometimes have this thought at the back of my mind about using the same reading time for books instead. Do you have any tips and tricks on how you’ve build a balance in this?

[pontus]

My experience is that books come in two forms: ones that can be summarized by a blog post (e.g. any Malcolm Gladwell book) and those that contain content of irreducible complexity (e.g. history books or textbooks). I usually get bored with the first type of book because it just rehashes the same thing over and over again.

So, when you choose book vs article, I think this distinction should be part of the thought process. Basically, if you do give up a blog post or article in favor of a book, make sure you're getting the right bang for you buck and are not just re-reading the same idea over and over again.

[omosubi]

I'm a big fan of the adage to not read anything younger than 10/20/30 years old. by definition most books are mediocre, especially new ones, and only reading stuff older than a certain age helps filter out the crap.

same goes with blog posts to a certain extent - there are a number of shorter works that are constantly posted on HN (http://jsomers.net/hn/) and many of them are worth reading. though tbh I read a lot of articles all over the internet from any time. blame it on lack of discipline

[doc_gunthrop]

It's not uncommon for those types of books (as you mentioned, for example, Malcolm Gladwell) to come into being as a result of a series of blog posts.

A couple examples are Cal Newport and Mark Manson. Their books aren't bad, but they could be reduced to probably 1/3 of their actual length without much loss of insight.

[vizer20]

I listen to audiobooks, it helps to filter boring books. And after listening to the audiobook If I feel that I missed a lot I can read a regular book.

There is a great book "how to read a book" by Mortimer J. Adler. It teaches to filter books and understand if it worth reading

[gregmac]

I've read too many of the first that lately it has killed most of my motivation to read any non-fiction books (the last couple I started, I just never finished because essentially I got bored). I enjoy reading (and still read fiction), and I want to have that motivation, but I just can't seem to muster it. This includes books that have good reviews, because apparently a lot of people don't seem to mind. It just seems like there's a lot of people writing books because it's "the thing to do" and probably makes more money than the couple blog posts or long article that would have been a better format.

Anyone else experience this, and how did you get past it?

[pontus]

I'd like it if the trend became to write business books as a collection of essays rather than around a single topic. I'm sort of imagining Paul Graham's essays bound into a book or something similar. That way it's not unnecessarily verbose, but still long enough to warrant putting into a book.

[gumby]

Business books — even the insightful ones — are typically only 2-3 pages long (there a few, very few, exceptions). But that can’t sell at the airport so they are padded out like washing powder.

[input_sh]

I use Pocket to postpone reading articles during the work week. I then go through the list over morning coffee on weekends on my e-reader. Once I removed that impulse to read articles immediately as I stumble upon them, I found out that I simply delete like 50-60% of collected links without consuming them.

I read books either after work / later on weekends / before bed.

[iex_xei]

I do the same and yes, results are similar. I delete most of the material I marked after some time. It also prevents me to chase the breaking news. When I go over a list, usually the "breaking" value is already lost so I can skip them.

I also have a two or three layer setup. I star the material in rss reader, then if it looks ok after some time, I add to Pocket. I skim the article in Pocket and if it looks worthy enough, I favorite it and an IFTTT rule adds it to Instapaper. I read once more in Instapaper.

In my opinion, if you don't think you'll revisit an article, it's not worth reading even once.

Edit: typo

[voisin]

> I found out that I simply delete like 50-60% of collected links without consuming them.

This is an interesting result! Why do you suppose this is?

[bordercases]

Prefer books over articles generally since the information density is often higher and the quality of information for published books is going to be more consistent. Books often contain leads for more information which can be contained in either more books or articles, of high quality, for good reasons.

Articles are often more contemporary in topic matter and so should be fit to your current purpose, rather than acting as your primary means of exploring topics (which is their most common use when reading feeds, if we call "filling up time due to boredom" a form of foraging). Books are better for both exploration and depth when it comes to understanding important and long-lasting ideas.

[cavalcade119]

I balance the two by reading longform articles that convey a single idea well, rather than books that take too long to read and clickbait articles that provide instant-gratification but nothing of lasting value. (I highly recommend the Thinking About Things newsletter [0] and LongReads [1] for finding these kinds of articles.)

[0] https://twitter.com/ThinkingAboutT6

[1] https://longreads.com/

[exaltation]

Seconding the recommendation of Thinking About Things. That newsletter is really one of the internet's unknown gems - I tire of most "interesting article" curators eventually, but they cover such a diverse array of topics that it's been over a year and I still enjoy their articles.

[nicbou]

Thinking About Things is really good. I couldn't stop scrolling and adding things to Pocket. Thank you for the recommendation.

[herodoturtle]

Great piece of advice, thanks - and for the links too.

[powersnail]

I dump articles into instapaper send them to my kindle when there's a pile of them. That's usually every week. Then, when I have some free time, waiting for my beef stew, for instance, I'll chip at them little by little.

Some really short ones --- a short news for instance, I just skim over them when I see them.

Some articles require more concentration, and I'll usually add them to my At-Desk to do list. When I'm at my desk, and has a chunk of free time, I'll pick one and read.

One thing is that over the week, some articles will have the same topic, with varying depth and quality. So by waiting a little bit, I can often read less words while still being informed.

But I probably spend much more time on books, mostly in mornings and evenings, because I prefer books in general. However, I read fictions most of the time. It's probably not what you have in mind, and it isn't really comparable to articles.

[notionparallax]

I read mostly fiction books too. (At bed time mostly) For articles I save them them to Pocket, and then every so often I'll edit the list.

I make a zine called https://WaldenPond.press that I get delivered once a month. Then I leave my phone inside and read for 20 minutes or so on the balcony while I have a coffee in the morning.

It doesn't sound like much, but I'm consistently getting through the 4 hour edition in about 2 weeks. Then I switch to just reading my fiction book in the morning as well as at night.

[martindbp]

I prefer books over articles for a few reasons. One, it feels like more of an accomplishment (I know this is a shallow reason to read, but it's a reason nonetheless). Second, I'm much more likely to remember the source of a piece of information if I read it in a book, which helps with organizing and remembering what I've read. Random articles just leave me with a vague feeling of knowing something but not why I know it. Third, a published book is more likely to good.

[nicbou]

Books are not inherently more valuable than articles, but they certainly seem to be valued more. Honestly, I just read what I like at a given time. It's not that important.

In practice, I read more articles day to day, but I read more book when I travel, because I dedicate more time to reading. I love to sip a beer and read a book in distant places.

[x14km2d]

I read for one hour every day in a book and one hour online articles. Most of the time, however, I invest less time in articles because I read most of them only roughly.

[karaterobot]

I read books in my bed before going to sleep, and I read articles on my computer during the day. So, there's a clear physical separation: different parts of the house, different times of the day, different media. They don't overlap, so they don't conflict.

Are you reading for pleasure, or for study?

If for study, you can save a lot of time by scanning the text, contents, and index for what's relevant to you, and only reading those parts (or at least reading them first). For articles you can usually just read the middle half, ignoring the introduction and conclusion.

If for pleasure, you're out of luck. You'll never read everything you'll want to read in one lifetime. You can maximize the value of your limited time by casting off any sense of obligation you may have to books you aren't getting value from. If a book isn't justifying itself after an hour, or 50 pages, or whatever, toss it out and find something else. Life is too short to slog through garbage.

[madhadron]

> I sometimes have this thought at the back of my mind about using the same reading time for books instead.

This implies that books are inherently superior. But sometimes the author's content isn't a book length. (I see this a lot in books from Harvard Business Review where what is really called for is a dense article, but that doesn't put a book on the author's resume.)

Some arguments are intrinsically long. Building up an understanding of thermodynamics (not just a summary of its formulation) is certainly book length. Scheidel's 'Escape from Rome' is not going to fit into an article.

So I don't really balance. Sometimes I have a big book in flight and that's going to take a lot of my attention. Sometimes I don't, but I have a number of interesting articles. I aim to optimize the enrichment I get instead.

[timdaub]

I try to minimize screen time in general and reading for me is really something I do to calm my mind. So a few habits that I developed are:

- Before bed time, I avoid screens and read novels instead - When I have spare time, I go out and read on a bench - I have my phone set to a black and white screen from 9:30pm on

[luxurytent]

Yup. I read articles during the day. How I pick those can be whatever came up that week/moment or I groom my Pocket backlog.

But before bed, I want my brain to calm down and books help that. Routine is 30 minutes before bed reading a paper novel. I also attempt to make this fiction (as most of my other reading is non-fiction)

It's tough with two kids, but I've prioritized it this year and have appreciated myself for doing so.

[mackrevinack]

do you have a tablet or an e-reader? maybe having a separate device and only allowing yourself to read articles on it might stop you from reading as many random articles online.

when i used pocket a few years ago i found that it was too easy add an article if I had the browser extension installed so i removed that and only added articles by going to the website, which meant i would usually think a bit more about whether I really wanted to read it or not.

ive just bought an android eink tablet and im going to start saving articles using a browser extension to save the article as epub or text, and then use syncthing to sync it to the tablet and read them there.

another thing that might help is to use an rss reader since you won't see a sidebar of other articles like you would on a website that might distract you

[ajot]

> im going to start saving articles using a browser extension to save the article as epub or text

Do you have any recommendation on such an extension? I've been using EpubPress[0], but it doesn't always make a great job (e.g. missing important images and still weighing many MBs)

[0] https://epub.press/

[scarecrowbob]

I have several books going at any given time and will generally only read a chapter or a couple of pages. If it is material I find especially tough (for me it's been Deleuze or Lacan) I might only read a page or so a day.

Typically, I am doing this in the evening and I have a regular time after my evening meditation and walk.

Being able to structure that only happened after my kiddo got into high school and it's been easier since he's at college and I am wholly on my own.

[phantom784]

Poorly. I read a bunch growing up, but as an adult I've found I've lost the attention span for longer books. Which is a shame.

[juancn]

I like books for fiction, and articles for keeping up to date. I usually read books for fun before sleeping, and articles to keep informed during the day. But really, I just do whatever I feel like doing.

I might cut Netflix time for reading, but articles are kind of a necessity to keep up to date.

[grillermo]

I keep my reading time at two hours daily, with that i am supposed to read about two or three books a month and everything that falls into my kindle. At this point i’ve gotten very good at skim reading light articles and aggressively deleting uninteresting or bad ones.

[psmyrdek]

Please take a look at my model - it's all about two dimensions and things get easier - https://dev.to/psmyrdek/the-learning-funnel-133i

[bobobob420]

I only read articles that I believe are making me more intelligent by expanding my understanding of a concept or incredibly thought provoking. Doing the same for books is quite tedious so I only read fiction books that revolve around good stories.

[techbio]

Like others here, I read books on paper by incandescent light in the hours before bed. But since you bring it up, I think I might try to start using paper-only for an hour or two after waking also, before facing a screen.

[retrocomputing]

Books are a superior format, consider cookie walls, notification popups, ads and all the other junk.