(non-fiction) book selection approach

[FrugalPatat]

I seem to be spending a lot of time searching books, reading the same stuff in different books, skimming through books that are too verbose etc.
The older I get (more books read), the worse this seems to get. I might start with internet (reddit,goodreads,amazon,...) recommendations on a subject and also look for the recommendations of the authors of those books; or in general try to find book or sub-subject recommendations by established people in a field.
When I look at amazon or goodreads reviews I might try to find the people that give critical reviews of 5-star books and find what they recommend.
Yet I keep wasting a lot of time. I would say I waste (a lot) more time than I actually spend time reading what is the 'right' stuff for me.

I really would like to find a way to be more effective in my book selection.

How do you approach this?

[FBeyer]

By learning to skim faster, and spend my time grokking the few important things that pop up, rather than expend a uniform amount of energy on the entirety of a book. A 500 page (non-mathematical) book can be skimmed in an evening, and the important things can be read the next day or two.

As I'm asymptotically approaching my limit (within those few topics I DO study atm) I find that I should spend less time in the books, and learn how to actually mold the world around me according to what I've read. To me knowledge is nothing if it doesn't produce some form of agency. That, then, seems to quickly take care of the dwindling amount of interesting books to pick up.

[FrugalPatat]

By learning to skim faster, and spend my time grokking the few important things that pop up, rather than expend a uniform amount of energy on the entirety of a book. A 500 page (non-mathematical) book can be skimmed in an evening, and the important things can be read the next day or two.

Do you read physical books or e-books? I could improve in this area but pretty much only read ebooks on an e-reader and there seems to be no way to skim at the speed it can be done in physical books. A partial solution would be to spend more timing doing the skimming on my computer and then actual reading on the e-reader.

[FBeyer]

Both, but you're right; e-books can't be skimmed in the same way physical books can. That's the one point where e-books really suck.
Do you have a reader-like program for your computer that lets you display, say, 6 or so pages at a time?

[Farm_or]

I don't think reading reviews is a waste of time. That type of sharing information is a big advantage for all internet users.

But only reading the most critical reviews? That is like trying to calculate standard deviation from the outliers on one side of the bell curve.

[FrugalPatat]

I don't think reading reviews is a waste of time. That type of sharing information is a big advantage for all internet users.

The problem is that despite reading reviews I end up too ofen with the wrong books.

[FrugalPatat]

Both, but you're right; e-books can't be skimmed in the same way physical books can. That's the one point where e-books really suck.
Do you have a reader-like program for your computer that lets you display, say, 6 or so pages at a time?

Actually I do, but I never used it. Just tried it, changing the background color to a light grey color to reduce the harshness of white light also helped.
Still some books are easier to skim than others. Sometimes it takes just the chaptertitle or a few sentences to see what a chapter is about. Sometimes the titles are more cryptic and it takes a lot more.

[Jason]

I take a top down approach and stay away from the general public. If it's a new topic that I have no clue about, I start with Five Books. The best source of non-fiction books is non-fiction books - I try to find the "loop" of the best authors in a specific field dialoguing with each other. A non-fiction book that lacks said discourse is not worth reading. If I don't like something in either its most essential or its most difficult form, I'm going to walk as 101 books take up too much time with basic pedagogy and not the topic at hand.

If a current book causes wide spread interest in a certain field, I will address the field before the book. "New" is invariably a recapitulation of a forgotten "old."

The most important instructional lesson I ever heard was when a Professor started the course by saying "I am not here to teach you about "x" but to teach you how an expert in "x" thinks, which in context of this board, is the difference between the two most acknowledged tri-letter acronyms in this field . Particularities are easy to find. Themes not so much. Teach a man how to fish thing.

[7Wannabe5]

My advice might not serve, because I only tipped over the line from reading majority literary fiction to majority non-fiction in my late 30s, so I prefer some balance of engaging memoir or amusing turn-of-phrase along with new-to-me information or ideas. So, for instance, Taleb is very much my cup of tea, and I have adopted some of his recommendations for reading towards erudition.

Rather than skimming, although I do that too, I allow myself to start and drop and simultaneously read as many books as I like. Instead of following recommendations, which generally point to peer or derivative works, I back-track references or bibliographies with the goal of making my way towards the origin, but I often get too lazy when I hit bedrock at some paper published in 1942, so then I circle back to trail. The benefit of reading back to origin, rather than some collection of contemporary works, is that it helps in making clear distinction between progress and fashion, which might even apply to a topic such as mathematics. Good example of this would be how pre-Freudian psychology was lost in the 20th century.

Also, I must admit that when I am really at a loss for what to read next, I often just pick a random year, and then pick a random book on the NYT Notable list for that year.

[Scott 2]

When I hit the point the OP described in a topic, that usually means I've reached the limit of what I can realistically learn from a book. It is time to seek learning from an expert and/or peers for practical experience.

I think it is a bathtub curve, where if you reach a high enough level of expertise, you then need to resume reading for new information. But it has to be against very specific topics, requiring dense sources and a lot of time investment for small gains.

For the most part, I've stopped reading because of this. I am not playing at the novice or expert level in my areas of interest.

[jacob]

Often the used price/new price will give some indication of the value of the book because it shows what the demand is from new readers relative to those who have already read it (and want to hang onto it). Money talks ...

In terms of reviews, I used to believe in the virtue of 1 or 2 star reviews as being perhaps more critical, but then I discovered that those reviewers are often just serial carpet bombers who hate almost everything (Amazon lets you check someone's review story). Now, I mostly attention to the longer reviews because it's easier to tell if people actually read and understood the book or whether they just didn't understand what they were reading.

[Dream of Freedom]

Look for titles that are very specific not just generally about the subject and cut your losses quickly.

[Farm_or]

I like Jacob's point of reviewing the reviews. If you think about it, we can pick up on bias and half truths pretty quickly.

I feel like more time reading reviews is well worthwhile. You have to expect many sub par quality reviews, because there are many people with short attention spans and lack of experience.

The worst part is, you can not really apply a mathematical model to what percentage are above average, average, or below. The subject matter and reviewers are too diverse.

Short reviews are typically lower quality, but they don't take much time to read. And sometimes a lot can be said in few words. I think I have a tendency to scan for reviews that have a lot of comments or reactions. Good or bad, when a review garners more reactions, it is usually interesting and data worthy.

You can't escape that it takes an investment of time to read enough reviews that you can get the gist of it. It's worth the time...

[fiby41]

Talking to the librarian.