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How to Find Books That are Actually Worth Your Time - YouTube
Channel: Thomas Frank
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Here's an interesting question.
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Given all the books out there,
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how do you know what to read?
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Or to rephrase that,
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how do you avoid the bad or mediocre books
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that just waste your time?
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Well that is what we are
going to try to answer
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in this video,
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though I think we need a
more fitting set first.
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Give me a second.
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(upbeat music)
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Alright, that's better.
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So I've gotten a lot of questions
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on this particular subject in the past,
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but I'm just gonna go ahead
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and read the most recent one for you.
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I desperately need a video
about how to efficiently develop
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a reading list that saves you
from stumbling upon bad books,
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which may put you off a whole genre.
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I'd also like to know
how to read more books
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in more diverse categories
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and how to avoid abandoning
the older items on my list
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for a random book that I just heard of.
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Now I do want to be a bit
careful with this topic,
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because when I think back
to some of the best books
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I've ever read, they've been things that
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I've just randomly picked
off the library shelf
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or was given to by a friend,
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and I don't want you to avoid
those serendipitous occasions.
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But given the absolute tirade of content
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that comes out of the
publishing houses of the world
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and the internet,
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in the interest of helping you triage
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all the options out there,
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I want to give you some recommendations
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for how to find the best
books in a particular genre,
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and avoid wasting your
times on the bad ones
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or the mediocre ones,
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or the ones that are just kind
of padded out for sales value
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if nothing else.
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And the first thing we're gonna talk about
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is one of my favorite
websites in the world,
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which is GoodReads.com.
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I've been on Good Reads
for quite a long time,
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and I found many of my favorite books
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in Good Reads recommendation lists
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which I would highly
recommend checking out.
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For instance,
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one of my favorite
nonfiction books of all time,
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Bill Bryson's "A Short
History of Nearly Everything",
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was right near the top of
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one of Good Read's best
nonfiction of all time lists,
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and that's actually where I found it.
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And Good Reads is useful for other things
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besides just its list feature.
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If you do see a book on a
shelf at Barnes and Noble
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or some bookstore or a library
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and you're not sure
whether or not to read it,
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the reviews on Good Reads
can be highly detailed
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and can be very good
ways to triage the books
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you have on your list
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to figure out what you should prioritize,
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and a lot of authors actually have
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very active Good Reads profiles.
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In fact, Pat Rothfuss, who
wrote "The Name of the Wind",
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which is one of my top five
fiction novels of all time
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has an incredibly long review history,
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which I have perused
many times in the past,
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and one day when I was just
casually scrolling through it,
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I saw that he had written
a five star review
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for a fiction book,
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called "The Girl Who
Circumnavigated Fairyland
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"in a Ship of Her Own Making",
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so I picked this up, read it,
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and even though it's kind of a YA novel,
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I found it to be a really good read.
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So in short, Good Reads gives
you an extensive database
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of lists of all different types of genres.
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I mean I've found cyber
punk novels on their lists,
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I've found hacker history
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and crime history stuff on their lists,
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so whatever it is, you can
probably find a list about it.
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It also has a huge user base
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so there's lots of reviews
for most books out there,
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and you can use the review histories
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of lots of your favorite authors
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who are active on the platform
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to find new books that they liked
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and which you may like as well.
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Now another great way to figure out
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whether or not a book is worth your time
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is to read a summary of it,
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and there are actually several
resources on the internet
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that you can go to to find lots
and lots of book summaries.
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I'm gonna give you a few
recommendations here,
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starting with the free ones
and then moving on to some
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that do cost money.
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So in the free category, I
want to point you towards
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two different websites
which are each run by people
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that I have a lot of respect for
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and who I've been
following for a long time.
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First and foremost, there's
the website of Derek Sivers,
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who founded the company CD Baby,
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which if you have any music on Spotify
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or you know anybody who
is an independent artist
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and has their music on
Spotify or Apple or iTunes,
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they probably went through CD Baby,
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they're kind of the OG in this industry,
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and since then, Derek has sold the company
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and spent a lot of his intervening
time between now and then
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reading and reviewing and taking notes,
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really detailed notes
actually, on a lot of books.
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So if you go over to his website,
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which is I believe Sivers.org/books,
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you're gonna find a huge
list of book reviews
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with lots of notes and summaries,
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which can be a very good way to figure out
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whether or not a book is
actually worth picking up.
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And along the same lines,
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my friend Nat Ellingson
has another very long
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and very detailed book
notes page on his website,
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which I'll have linked
in the description below
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because I can't think
of the URL right now.
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And that brings us over
to the paid options,
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one of which is NewBooksinBrief.com,
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which I believe is just run
by one guy who reads books
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and then writes very
detailed summaries of them.
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Now on that site you
can actually get access
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to the first part of
each summary for free,
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and then afterwards I think
it's about $3 bucks per summary
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if you want to just buy
them and get access to them.
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And another resource that
I've used in the past
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is called Blinkist.
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Now in contrast to New Books in Brief
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which operates on a pay as you go basis,
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you basically buy each
summary as you want it,
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Blinkist operates on a subscription model.
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So if you're the kind of
person that wants to devour
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lots and lots of summaries,
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it can be a very good option for you.
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Now I do want to give
you one word of warning
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when it comes to book summaries,
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because reading them is much like
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getting the notes from your friend
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instead of actually going to class.
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You're getting a second hand
account of the source material,
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and that can be good for
getting through that material
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quickly and seeing what at
least somebody else believes
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is the most important
points from that material,
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but you're not taking it in yourself.
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So there may be things
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that would have resonated better with you
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that are just omitted from their account.
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And that example of
getting notes from a friend
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actually brings to mind
one additional tip,
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which is to make friends who like to read
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lots and lots of books
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from which you can get
lots of recommendations.
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Earlier in the video, I mentioned the book
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"The Name of the Wind"
by Patrick Rothfuss,
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and the only reason I ever read that book
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is because a friend of mine
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basically shoved the book into my hands
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and told me that I had to read it.
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Now usually when people
recommend books to me,
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I think well, my Good Reads
list is already so long,
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I've already got so many books
that I wanna read before this
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so I'm never gonna get to it,
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but in that case, I read the book,
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I put everything else on the back burner,
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and I do not regret doing that at all.
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That book was amazing.
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And that brings me to something
that this person mentioned
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in their question.
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They wanna know how to avoid
abandoning the order items
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on their to be read list,
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or the TBR if you're in
the Book Tube circles,
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in favor of taking up random books
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that people just recommend
to you in the moment
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or that catch your eye on the bookshelf.
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And quite honestly, I don't
think this is a problem.
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Yeah, you probably want to
get to the books on your TBR
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at some point, they're interesting,
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but just because they made it
onto your list for a new book
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doesn't mean that they're gonna have
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a greater impact on your
life than a new book will.
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As we've talked about on this channel
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and a lot of times in the past,
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the greatest ingredient
to learning is interest.
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So if something catches your eye
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and you're interested in
it, don't shove that away
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because you think you need
to get through something
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that was further down your list first.
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Follow your interest and let it guide you.
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In fact, while I'm thinking about it,
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Martin you actually deleted
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your entire to be read list, right?
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- [Martin] Yes.
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- Yeah, so there you go.
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Now to round this video out,
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I do wanna offer a few
more pieces of advice
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from my own experience
regarding reading books
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and having a lot of choices
and all that kind of stuff.
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Number one, don't finish a bad book.
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Remember, the goal, if there
is a goal to reading a book,
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is not to turn the final page
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and be able to say that you did it,
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or be able to check it off
on your Good Reads profile,
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it's to get something
useful out of the book
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or to enjoy reading it.
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You've probably seen all
these people on the internet
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talking about how they read
a book a day or a book a week
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and how it changed their life,
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but to be honest, the
number of books you read
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is not a metric that's worth tracking.
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I mean it can be fun,
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but it's what you get out of those books
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that really matters at the end of the day.
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So if you pick up a book
and you start reading it
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and then halfway through you think
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this is a waste of my time,
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then put it down, don't finish bad books.
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Remember, your time is more valuable
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than what you paid for the book,
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if indeed you paid for it at all.
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But as a caveat to that tip,
don't be overly concerned with
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reading the best quote
unquote books out there,
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because the best books are just the books
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that other people say are the best,
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and like we said before,
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you may gain something out of a book
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that nobody else is going to see
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because you have your own
unique life experience
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and your own unique goals.
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And furthermore, even if a particular book
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doesn't make it onto your favorites list
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or doesn't change your life immediately,
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it may send you down a path
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that leads you to other
resources which do.
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For example, one of the books
that I'm gonna talk about
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in next week's video about
books that changed my life
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is one called "Harry Potter and
the Methods of Rationality",
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which is, at the end of the
day, kind of a silly fan fiction
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that basically writes the
first Harry Potter book
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if Harry Potter was a boy genius.
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And I really enjoyed that book,
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but I wouldn't say that book
in particular changed my life,
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but what it did do is get
me interested in rationality
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and heuristics and biases,
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and that book led me to
reading a book called
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"Thinking Fast and Slow",
which did change my life.
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And last but not least,
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don't forget to enjoy
the process of reading.
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One of the top lessons
I've learned in life
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is that you never really get there.
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Whenever you get to a milestone,
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there's just another milestone waiting
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at the top of the next
hill that you can see,
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so enjoy what you read.
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Don't worry about having read
all the best books out there
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because you're gonna want
to enjoy the actual process.
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And on that note of
enjoying what you read,
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one of the things that I am
greatly enjoying right now
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is the complete collection
of Sherlock Holmes stories.
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Though it is slightly inaccurate
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for me to say that I'm
enjoying reading them,
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because I'm actually
listening to them on Audible.
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Now you know the deal
with these Audible spots,
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I recommend a book that
I'm enjoying to you
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every single time I do one,
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but with the Sherlock Holmes stories,
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I do have to get a little bit specific
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because since Sherlock
Holmes is so famous,
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many narrators have tackled the
task of reading his stories,
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and you can find many different
collections on Audible.
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For example, there's a
collection by Simon Vance
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which is very good,
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there are collections by a
narrator named David Timpson
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which is very good, but for my money,
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the one that you want to get
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is the one that is read by none other than
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the great Stephen Fry.
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Not only is his voice
absolutely fantastic,
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but this collection of
stories is over 60 hours long
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and it's only one credit, so for my money,
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it is one of the best deals
that exists on Audible
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and I am really enjoying it.
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And what's better,
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if you're not already an Audible customer,
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you can go over to Audible.com/Thomas
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or text Thomas to 500500 on your phone
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to get a free trial of their service
[576]
and a free audiobook download,
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whether it's Sherlock Holmes
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like I'm recommending for you right now,
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or anything else of your choosing.
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And when it comes to choosing,
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you're gonna have a ton of selection
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because Audible has an
unmatched library of titles
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across a ton of different genres,
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ranging from all the bestsellers
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to lots of really obscure stuff.
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So whatever is on your to be read list,
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if you have not deleted
it like Martin has,
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you're probably gonna be able to find it.
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So once again, if you want
to get started with Audible
[600]
and start listening to audiobooks,
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which can be a great way
to make your downtime
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more efficient, the time on
the bus, time spent driving,
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time spent folding the laundry,
all that kind of stuff,
[608]
then head on over to Audible.com/Thomas,
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or once again text Thomas
to 500500 on your phone.
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Big thanks to Audible
for sponsoring this video
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and being a huge
supporter of this channel,
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and as always guys, thank
you so much for watching.
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If you enjoyed this video,
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give it a like to support this channel
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and you might also wanna click right there
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to subscribe so you don't
miss out on new videos
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when they come out.
[628]
You can also click right over there
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to get a free copy of my book
on how to earn better grades,
[631]
or go right over here to listen to
[633]
our latest podcast episode.
[635]
Last but not least, click right
here to watch one more video
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on this channel, and I will
see you in next week's video
[640]
on five books that changed my life.
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