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Comment on Ask HN: How do you decide what books to read?

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129 books in one year is quite something. Is reading part of your job? I felt like I spent a decent amount of my free time reading this year, but I’ve completed only 23 books so far.

A very strong input into my book choices is reading the ‘classics’ in various domains. I will make frequent use of “Top 100 X books in Y” and “best X book of all time” queries.

I very much subscribe to the idea that selected books form a cultural and intellectual endowment of society to its members. Reading these selected books allows me to competently participate in society, as so much of our communication, institutional structure, and culture is downstream of these works. Examples of such works would be Shakespeare, Dickens, Silent Spring, The Intelligent Investor, Manufacturing Consent, Plato’s Republic.

Reading isn’t a part of my job, unless you count being well-informed or well-read part of any job. I am self employed but not in a 4-hour workweek kind of way (I enjoyed that book way more than I expected and only read it at the urging of a friend whose taste I trust).

I definitely agree about the classics and I’ve considered devoting an entire year to only reading in that category. Maybe 2021 is the year for it!

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