Hot take: Group discussions beat solo reading every time for nonfiction books

I was in a book club last month where we read a dense history book about the silk road. On my own I got bored around page 50 and almost quit. But when we met at Linda's house on Tuesday night, three other people had caught details I completely missed. One guy even found a map online that showed the trade routes we were arguing about. Has anyone else found that a good debate makes a boring book actually interesting?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamesm482mo ago

Did you guys also end up going on a Wikipedia deep dive after those meetings?

thompson.nathan2mo ago

Oh wow, that's a great point @jamesm48, I think the deeper dive stuff hits different when you're trying to win an argument at the next meeting.

reesea491mo ago

lol "hits different" is right. I once spent a whole Sunday reading about the history of paperclips just because someone mentioned them in a team update. The next Monday I showed up ready to debate paperclip patents at our status meeting. Nobody cared. My boss just stared at me like I grew a second head. Still totally worth it though, even if I looked like a total nerd. I swear these deep dives are my secret weapon for sounding smart when I'm really just trying to avoid doing actual work.