read old books

According to some AI bot on google, about 7.5 million blog posts and about 1,000 news articles are published every single day (I hate to add to that number with this baby post). Astonishingly, 11,000ish new books are published each day. We have very limited time and are in the age of information overload. This is a terrible combo. We must be extremely selective about what we put into our brains.

So how do you find the good stuff amongst all the garbage? Hint: the answer is not CNN or Fox News.

Understanding the Lindy effect can help you filter through all the noise for a better signal to noise ratio.

Example: choose old books over daily news. Nothing in the news can come close to Dostoevsky.

I first learned about the Lindy effect from Nassim Taleb in Antifragile. Taleb defines it as:

Lindy Effect: A technology, or anything nonperishable, increases in life expectancy with every day of its life—unlike perishable items (such as humans, cats, dogs, and tomatoes). So a book that has been a hundred years in print is likely to stay in print another hundred years. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb from Antifragile

Whenever someone says "Oh that XXXX has stood the test of time" they are referring to the Lindy effect. The XXXX could be music, wine, books, or any nonperishable item. Competition weeds most things out over time. So whatever is left is usually pretty solid.

In my early 20's I decided to read the classics. I kind of filtered through all the noise applying the Lindy effect without knowing it. This led to a very high signal to noise ratio where I was almost guaranteed to be learning something from every book I read.

Point is -> Read the classics and then read them again. If you don't think a book is worth rereading then why bother reading it in the first place?

Now I am on the rereading phase of many of the classics. And each time I read them they get better. I think most good things in life get better with repeated use or doing, not worse. It is like the saying you never set foot in the same river twice. The book is the river. It will always be a new experience.

What book do you miss and want to reread?