New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Are a lot of books just... useless?

Ask HN: Are a lot of books just... useless?
5 by adversaryIdiot | 2 comments on Hacker News.
I'm trying to get into reading, but I keep running into an issue where a lot of these books feel like fluff. Like, why are there so many books around 250 pages? Surely, these authors are trying to hit a page count first, and then providing information second. It just feels disingenuous, which kills my vibe while reading the book. There are some books I've read where it feels like every page is a gold mine of information. Is this whole fluff-to-information predicament a common thing in reading? What tools/metrics are there to help find meaningful books? For example, is it viable to only read books greater than 4.5 stars on Goodreads? Or is meticulously researching for good books just a matter of life in the book-reading hobby? Maybe every book is valuable, and it's just a skill to read, to extract the meaningful information effectively. But honestly, as with everything in life, it's probably a mix of everything. Researching and reading skills will probably make the hobby more enjoyable. But I mean, since it's a hobby, I have the right to try to avoid books I would consider 'useless'.

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