Book Brigades

Akrasia
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Here’s an idea I’ve wanted to try for a while and thought of it again in the context of group goals:

A book brigade is a very small group of very like-minded people collaborating on getting a book read and understood by taking turns reading sections of it and recapping for the others. I expect it to be powerful because (a) you can get a book loaded into your head from only reading a fraction of it, and (b) the part where you have to explain it to others gets it cemented in your own head much better than reading it alone.

Here’s a sampling of non-fiction books I’ve been wanting to read, in case anyone wants to join a book brigade for one of these (or propose your own!):

  1. The Precipice, by Toby Ord (I’m already beeminding reading this on my own but if anyone wanted to catch up and join me, by all means)
  2. How To Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
  3. REWORK, by Jason Fried and DHH
  4. Situational Awareness, by Leopold Aschenbrenner
  5. The Information, by James Gleick
  6. Thinking in Bets, by Annie Duke
  7. The Beginning of Infinity, by David Deutsch
  8. Land is a Big Deal, by Lars Doucet
  9. How Not to Be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg

Some of those I’m not sure if they’re too outdated, already in the water supply, so to speak, or are still must-reads.

(More ideas in an old thread from Adam.)

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Interested in giving this a shot with 2 and 9, unless European time and what you’re observing makes it too difficult :innocent:

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I’d be interested in joining in with 2, 3, or 4.

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I would be interested in 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (although it may be to dense for this format).

How exactly would a group goal work for the book club? If I don’t read my pages somebody else has to catch up for me?

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I’m thinking the group would rule out picking up each other’s slack. We probably want to the trust to be a complete graph and for everyone to care about each other enough that they’re willing to put up real stakes on everyone getting through the book together.

My idea in the the other thread about group goals with internet friends was that when it’s your turn to read a chapter or section, it’s also your responsibility to tell Beeminder the page number you’re on if it’s a beemergency. If you don’t, everyone will be charged! You’re also expected to take notes up to that page. When your section is done, you clean up and send those notes to the other groupies. Or, depending on preferences, liveblogging to each other as you read. (Random example, here’s Sarah Constantin liveblogging her reading of Situational Awareness: x.com/s_r_constantin/status/1802737462776676716)