There are some thoughts about book as information medium.
tech books
I work in tech. One day in 2009 I was having a lunch with my peers and my engineering manager. A peer asked my manager what tech books did he read? The manager gave somehow surprising answer to me: he doesn’t read a lot.
“Interesting 🤨..” - I though. “Why?” - I asked not giving a second to my peer to follow up with the same question. (I listen more since that time).
The answer was simple: “On a daily basis you deal with challenges you need to respond fast, so not time for books”.
That makes sense.
I’m sure he had also read a lot before to form his mental model, giving his rich language vocabulary.
managerial books
I do engineering management and often invest into my education in the domain. Quite often the coaches/lecturers I learn from are asked for a list of books to read on the topic. The thought they share, which I can totally relate to, is: “we don’t read many books on management, as after reading 30-50 books on management there are no new ideas in there.”
what a book is good at?
A book or longer than average text medium does several good things to a reader:
- builds a complex mental model overall. Longer text format allows more information to flow in, so a more complex models to appear in your mind.
- builds a mental model at the reader pace. A part of that is a the ability to stop without a significant mental effort (to let the neurons connect, thus a mental model form). Both online and hard copy books are good here.
on books lists
Beware of the book lists you create as you change as a person over time. And a list of books has a lag in time: the book you had seen promising by title some time ago might not be relevant to you today, as you have overgrown it or not facing the same information need anymore.
Don’t be afraid not to follow a promise to yourself to read all in your book list, stay flexible and focused on the issues you try to solve right now, not on the sources where solutions could be. Otherwise, the idea is similar to the one depicted on the lamppost image below:
