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Is reading books overrated, especially when it comes to non-fiction? Let me explain.
I feel like there is this untouchable aura around reading, around the action of picking a book and reading it from beginning to end. People say simplified generalizations and bullshit statements like "A book is the best gift you can give to someone" or "You always learn something from a book". That's not true at all, they are shitty books that don't teach you anything, and spend an awful amount of words dong so.
I feel like there are now ways of sharing knowledge and information that are much more efficient than books. Now, of course, that isn't true for fiction works, but there are definitely some philosophy works out there that can be summed up much more efficiently than actually reading them.
When you read books, don't you sometime feel like you're done and got the essential of it without even being finished?
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>>8341021
what the fuck is going on in that picture
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Reading is oxygen this ignites the waiting fire in your brain--well, if you had one.
>>8341024
He's realizing he cannot hold all those watermelons.
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is that kramer?
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>>8341021
>When you read books, don't you sometime feel like you're done and got the essential of it without even being finished?
that's not even possible.
how could you "get the essential of" Crime and Punishment for example, without reading it in its entirety
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>>8341070
I think OP is mostly refering to non fiction books
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>>8341021
op can you tell me what is going on with that pic
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I agree, OP. That's why you should do power skims or have other people reading for you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KnwTepKdU
I started with the greeks and decided with Derrida in only two months
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Where were you when you realised that the consumption of books as an end in itself (or as some sort of bullshitty path towards """insights""" in to the """human condition" or frankly anything) was invented by the media-publishing-academia industrial complex to sell you books and people you admire like Bertrand Russell / Aurelius / anyone who seemed smart or accomplished anything didn't spend all their time reading books. They spent their time doing stuff.
Why should people care about the book they read any more than the last can of cola they had? Why treat novels as more than entertainment?
I think a lot of non fiction is exercises in narcissism. A lot of stuff related to business / psychology / anything supposed to be helpful is trash tier. Many non-fiction books, even good ones, are written not to be read but to be referenced by future academics. They're just not entertaining and can be summarised easily.
There is a lot of resentment on /lit/ because it's 2016 and we have mathematics, physics, interesting and highly paid and varied jobs, chemistry, etc. In other words, we're not living in 1100 where everyone lives on a farm and the only way to show how intelligent you are is to have a wank over the bible and the greeks while creating your own branch of unfalsifiable philosophy or theology. You guys really really resent this.
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>>8341079
>10 mins video teaching how to read a book in 10 mins
>tfw no single image teaching how to watch a video with a single glance
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>>8341076
a white man's first night living in an all black neighborhood. he's praying to the nigger god to spare him his life.
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>>8341086
Goddammit, the most underrated comment on the entire site
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Yes. The mystique about books is bullshit, saying that has nothing to do with the greats, it just knocks down genre fiction, YA, cheap crime novel readers that unexplicably get smug with their trash.
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>just sum it up lol
I think you haven't actually worked in academia in your life and have no idea how much work goes into legitimate studies and books. To claim a quick summary of the endless hours of investigation, debate, scrutiny, and argumentation is "good enough" may be true if you don't really give a shit about the topic in question, but it's an insult to claim that your experience you'll receive from your reading of a summary is equal to the full elaboration of someone's hard work into a full essay or book.
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>lol we get it titian, its a sad pope! why do i have to waste looking at a wooden chair, when the pope is the only thing i care about!
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>>8341083
truth
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>>8341021 (OP)
>I feel like there is this untouchable aura around reading
>I feel like there are now ways of sharing knowledge and information that are much more efficient than books
>When you read books, don't you sometime feel like you're done and got the essential of it without even being finished?
>feel
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>>8341021
Nothing is overrated when you enjoy it on it's own merits.
If you only care about how your activities are "rated" maybe it's time to become a writer instead of a reader.You'll fail because you'll write what you think people want to read instead of what you want to write.
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