<story><title>The Best Books I Read in 2013</title><url>http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Best-Books-2013</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jun8</author><text>&amp;quot;But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how the world works.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Boy oh boy, if I had a quarter every time I heard that probably I could get a tall Starbucks latte. Many, &lt;i&gt;many&lt;/i&gt; people are under the assumption that fiction is stuff that somebody made up and hence useless while non-fiction gives you information about the world; so if you&amp;#x27;re a busy person, read non-fiction (it&amp;#x27;s of, course debatable if such a neat classification even can be done). What these people do not realize is that great fiction can provide &lt;i&gt;more&lt;/i&gt; information about the world, humanity in general, and what&amp;#x27;s even more important, yourself, then you can ever glimpse by reading another Gladwell book.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tokenadult</author><text>Well, if you compare the whole genre of &amp;quot;great fiction&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;another Gladwell book,&amp;quot; that gives the initial advantage to &amp;quot;great fiction,&amp;quot; for sure.&lt;p&gt;I read some of fiction and some of nonfiction, but definitely skew to reading more nonfiction. One nonfiction book, which I think someone on HN told me isn&amp;#x27;t even the best book on its specific topic, was very meaningful to me and helped me learn a lot about myself. I read the entire book out loud to my dad when he was paralyzed, about three years after his paralyzing accident (which was about three years before he died). The book is &lt;i&gt;The Endurance: Shackleton&amp;#x27;s Legendary Antarctic Expedition,&lt;/i&gt;[1] entirely nonfiction, but nonetheless a way to be transported into an earlier time and a place that I am unlikely ever to see in my lifetime. The characters were all real, but they all got me thinking about how I think and about how I get along in life. Great nonfiction can can provide more information about the world, humanity in general, and what&amp;#x27;s even more important, yourself, then you can ever glimpse by reading another science-fiction novel.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarctic-Expedition-ebook/dp/B001O1O6PE/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarc...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Best Books I Read in 2013</title><url>http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Best-Books-2013</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jun8</author><text>&amp;quot;But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how the world works.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Boy oh boy, if I had a quarter every time I heard that probably I could get a tall Starbucks latte. Many, &lt;i&gt;many&lt;/i&gt; people are under the assumption that fiction is stuff that somebody made up and hence useless while non-fiction gives you information about the world; so if you&amp;#x27;re a busy person, read non-fiction (it&amp;#x27;s of, course debatable if such a neat classification even can be done). What these people do not realize is that great fiction can provide &lt;i&gt;more&lt;/i&gt; information about the world, humanity in general, and what&amp;#x27;s even more important, yourself, then you can ever glimpse by reading another Gladwell book.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oskarth</author><text>This is a very common viewpoint among technical people, sadly. Kind of like how humanists think math is about counting things. I&amp;#x27;m not implying Gates is of that variety, but, you know, his kind, &lt;i&gt;our&lt;/i&gt; kind. Not that there&amp;#x27;s much point in reading Shakespeare nowadays, anyway.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_cultures&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Two_cultures&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>