TL;DR - [When trying to casually inform oneself in areas one isn’t an expert in, via reading books (and often other pieces) directed at a general audience] I think the value of reading a book once (without active engagement) is awkwardly small, and the value of big time investments like reading a book several times—or actively engaging with even part of it—is awkwardly large compared to that. Also, the maximum amount of understanding you can get is awkwardly small.
That’s the summary; his argument:
Let’s say you’re interested in a 500-page serious nonfiction book, and you’re trying to decide whether to read it. I think most people imagine their choice something like this:
I see things more like this:
I’ve recently noticed this essay might have been somewhat of a bad influence on me. When I first saw it in 2021 I thought “yup seems correct”, and since then have regularly had the 2nd table come to mind to dissuade me when I was on the fence about reading a particular long nonfiction book, to the point where I now no longer have much patience for the doorstoppers I used to read with relish. So over the 4-ish years since I’ve probably engaged substantively with fewer differently free thinkers’ worldviews than I could have, content as I was with shallow engagement with more of them. I’ve done more of Holden’s last row if I replace “the book” with “a topic I care about / need to make a decision on”, which seems robustly good, but that’s not really attributable to this essay.
From Holden’s reading books vs engaging with them:
That’s the summary; his argument:
I’ve recently noticed this essay might have been somewhat of a bad influence on me. When I first saw it in 2021 I thought “yup seems correct”, and since then have regularly had the 2nd table come to mind to dissuade me when I was on the fence about reading a particular long nonfiction book, to the point where I now no longer have much patience for the doorstoppers I used to read with relish. So over the 4-ish years since I’ve probably engaged substantively with fewer differently free thinkers’ worldviews than I could have, content as I was with shallow engagement with more of them. I’ve done more of Holden’s last row if I replace “the book” with “a topic I care about / need to make a decision on”, which seems robustly good, but that’s not really attributable to this essay.