| > And at least for non-fiction books, one implied assumption at the foundation: people absorb knowledge by reading sentences It was interesting to read this part. I'm not sure if this is even such a valid assumption for non-fiction anymore, given what we've learned about psychology and how people use books. People read for so many reasons that we're just starting to understand. Just a few examples: - To be able to say they read that book, to a given person, or for a given social or technical process. "Have you read X?" "Yes, it was an interesting book" and done, purpose reached. - To not be caught not knowing about things. In this case even "yeah, I recognize what you're saying--that's an idea from the book you shared with us" is easily enough. - To soak in, rather than to learn (intuiting a concept vs. mapping it out, for example) - To experience the energy/vibe/mood of the text; perhaps they are in an analogous mental state. I am often drawn to read computer programming books when I need to schedule or organize my daily work using logical if/then processes, for example. - To exercise their subjective imaginative capacity, e.g. converting words to imagined examples, imagery, or experiences - To limit their exposure to dopamine, for example picking reading from sets of other tasks like finger painting, or playing a group-learning game - To express their identity, e.g. "I'm a big reader, look at these books I'm working on" when it may otherwise be in doubt, for example And those are just some of at least hundreds that are broad enough to make useful categories which aren't too limiting. With books serving this many capacities, IMO it's easier to see why the concept of books "working" can be broken in a given way. Especially "learning" which is one of the more historical cases, with books serving as repositories of knowledge. But it also highlights senses in which one can say, "look, I'm not learning a thing here, and I know it, but I'm still reading this." IOW "books don't work" doesn't work in some important ways, and it could be that this is worth knowing, either for audience selection or other reasons. Anyway, good ideas there, thanks for sharing. |