[tkgally]

Looking back on what I read when I was around your age, I think I benefitted less from reading entire books straight through than I did from browsing through magazines and books as my interests led me. I spent a lot of time in libraries, wandering the stacks and reading rooms and stopping to read whatever caught my eye. Bound volumes of old general-interest magazines—The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Strand Magazine—were particularly absorbing, though I also dipped into a lot of books.

That library-browsing experience is now available through the Internet Archive. Some semirandom magazine examples are at [1, 2, 3]; some books are at [4, 5, 6]. There are millions more.

If HN had existed when I was eighteen, I would have enjoyed—and benefitted from—reading the articles and discussions here, too, perhaps almost as much as I do now at the age of sixty-four.

[1] https://archive.org/details/notesqueries12unse_0

[2] https://archive.org/details/blackwoodsedinb191unkngoog

[3] https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-magazine_1903-03_106...

[4] https://archive.org/details/authenticaccount01stau

[5] https://archive.org/details/russiannihilisme00buel

[6] https://archive.org/details/cottonkingdomtra00inolms