#How I read

I read a great article earlier that asked bloggers about their reading process. I loved this of course and made a mental note to put this down for the future. It was only until recently that I was able to get around to actually writing it down.

My reading is split into two categories. I read short-form blog posts from bloggers of a broad range of topics and features. I read these when I am winding down on my day or when I am on the bus when I do not have the time or concentration to read something longer. And then when I am walking about or going somewhere, I am reading a long form book.

Short Form

About a few years I moved my Google Reader account to Feedly. I had at that time been a huge Twitter fiend but after a few years I got tired of it. So I turned to my Feedly account, which at the time had not been following much except a single blogger called the Brooklyn Investor, an anonymous blogger who I consider to be the single best investments writer on the internet.

I expanded the writers in my Feedly until it is what it is today - the entire feed is shared here in the attached OPML file. I have categorized it into 15 folders:

• Anime
• Culture
• Foreign
• Friends
• HK
• Investing
• Machine Learning
• Marketing
• Economics News
• Programming
• Singapore
• Sports
• Travel
• Urban Studies
• Wall Street

The Investing folder started out as a collection of stock related articles, starting with the Brooklyn Investor, but has grown into a cross-disciplinary folder with writers who lean business-y but focus on explaining the laws of the world.

Foreign is also something real interesting - with a number of right leaning writers focusing on issues across the world. I have tried hard to split out the analysts from the reporters. Reporters can go into the HK and Singapore news folders.

I read Wall Street, Economics News, HK, and Singapore rather sparingly. Lots of current news that is of low quality but might surface something interesting. Marketing and Machine Learning aren’t too bad but same as the other two there is a lot of noise in the articles.

Long Form

I had a hard time reading books since I did not have the attention span to sit down and read copy for a long time. Things changed a great deal since I came across Audible. I pick up a book and listen to it at a 1.25-1.5x speed. I can finish a 600 page book in 2 weeks with good comprehension and it has greatly helped me in that through my commute.

I like to take a nice weekend afternoon walks outside with a book I am thoroughly enjoying. When I was living in Redwood City, I would go out and walk out of my building campus over the 101 overpass and to a nearby Best Buy a mile and a half away. I would then walk through the Best Buy and look at all the electronics there, including staring at the TVs.

The last time I was there I was working through Master of the Senate, the LBJ book I frequently praise here and I remember being at Best Buy, staring at the Presidential debate, now going on the multitude of TVs. I remember thinking to myself, “What a huge contrast from then and now.”

After I finish reading, I have found that it helps a lot to write about the book on this blog. I used to be in a book club back in SF but I am no longer there so … I just got this blog. It might not be very well thought out thoughts, but at least it is something. I feel a lot of satisfaction in marking a book as complete on Goodreads, making progress towards my annual book goal.