Ask HN: Are books worth it?
Growing up with the Internet, I always assumed that everything could be found for free online.
I spend most of my day reading online articles/conversations, watching videos, and listening to podcasts. I have thousands of non-fiction (mostly self-improvement) books in my reading list on GoodReads, but almost never bother to read any. I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations, YouTube videos, CliffsNotes, podcasts, Reddit posts/comments, blog articles, etc. I even find myself reading the comments and not reading the article most of the time. I'm fine with bullet point style summaries and don't care much about the fluff that fills most books I've read in the past.
Up until recently, I didn't think I was missing out. I thought that online content was roughly equivalent to 80% of what I'd get from reading actual books for 20% of the effort. I also thought that most books probably don't age very well and that most of the bleeding edge stuff could only be found online. But I'm starting to wonder if that's true. I'm starting to see people online mention that books are infinitely better than online content. I read that millionaires and billionaires read tons of books. I wonder if I'm missing out?
One issue for me is that books are a very big time investment. I read very slowly and I don't remember everything I read either. The last few books I read were mostly filled with fluff, anecdotes, stories, jokes, and trivialities. Even if I wanted to read books, I just don't know which ones I should start with, out of the 1000 "must-read" books in my reading list.
Are books worth it? Is it more true for some fields than others? Is it more true for older books? Isn't most of the information from books freely available online? Am I missing out?
406 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 331 ms ] threadAs if you're not limiting it to non-fiction, then yes you're missing out.
If you're limiting it to non-fiction, then yes. You're still missing out. Some concepts take more than a blog entry to understand fully. You might get some aspect of a concept but not all the facets.
As for technical non-fiction books, some of them can be really good and irreplacable.
“An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its ‘self-help’ section: ‘For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.’”
— Roger Ebert (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/larger-than-life-1996)
It's a little like, "Have you tried not having a broken leg?"
Honestly, you're lucky if the only personal problems you have can be solved by philosophy, literature, history and science.
(I had crippling depression for many years and was cured in a single session of hypnotherapy by a guy who publishes "self-help" books, so, while YMMV, I'm a lil defensive. I'm sure he meant well.)
most problems in your life can't be solved by reading a book, period. Self-help or otherwise. The first lie of self-help books is that they're actually 'helping' you in any meaningful sense of the word.
Digging yourself out of bad situations takes time and there is very little magic involved, and sometimes it's not possible at all. What philosophy or literature or history or science can however provide for anyone, is to understand the world a little bit better, which even if it doesn't solve your personal problems still gives you some perspective and solace.
If you're reading philosophy or literature, or just pulpy fiction at least you're reading for reading itself instead of just buying into some racket of "i'll spend ten minutes of reading self-help books and then I'll have 20% more energy and make a thousand dollars!"
And not to doubt your personal story but actual clinical depression is typically not solved by one off hypnotherapy sessions with self-help gurus.
How do you know? Not to be rude but why should I trust you more than some author of a "self-help" book?
I mean, a religious person might tell you that you can solve all your problems reading Scripture.
Heck, I openly maintain that most people could solve most of their problems by reading (and applying) the "Core Transformation Process" book.
Do you mind if I ask what your own personal experiences are that have led you to form your opinion?
> And not to doubt your personal story
Thank you! :-)
> but actual clinical depression is typically not solved by one off hypnotherapy sessions with self-help gurus.
Oh I know! (This wasn't the first thing I tried. I was miserable and desperate enough to shell out ~$4000 to attend a week-long seminar in hope of meeting this guy and getting help. At one point I volunteered for a demonstration on stage, ten minutes later (subjectively it was ten seconds) I was cured. I've written about it on HN a little, if you're interested you can search my comments. A few years later there was a relapse. It lasted three days and then I went back to normal. Those three days are the single most frightening thing that has ever happened to me. Only time in my life I've ever contemplated suicide. Thank God, after the third day I woke up normal again.)
My basic point is that, whatever this guy is doing, that's what we should be paying attention to. Now, you might say it's unfortunate that the ways he's chosen to bring the information to people is unscientific, and people do say that and worse, but it would be foolish IMO to throw that baby out with the bathwater of self-help.
For one, because he doesn't try to sell you anything.
Second, you don't get to "know" because you are hand-fed some hard proofs or figures.
You either know it already (and agree) or can see the point the parent is making, correlate it with your experiences and observations, and recognise it's true -- or, of course, you don't (and e.g. you have a different experience).
Publishers of philosophy, literature, history and science books are also trying to make a buck, eh?
> Second, you don't get to "know" because you are hand-fed some hard proofs or figures.
I don't understand this sentence.
> You either know it already (and agree) or can see the point the parent is making, correlate it with your experiences and observations, and recognise it's true -- or, of course, you don't (and e.g. you have a different experience).
Right, and it seems to me that the way forward is to share our experiences in good faith to try to find the mutually true union of our worldviews, eh?
If I understood GP's experiences better I might be better able to understand where a statement that looks to me to be so bizarre ("most problems in your life can't be solved by reading a book, period. Self-help or otherwise.") might make sense. I mean, think about it: books are where we store our knowledge, eh? Is GP including textbooks?
FFS, If you can't solve your problems by reading books we should just burn the libraries?
The parent however, we can presume, is neither of those things. And even if they were, they don't suggest you buy any particular work they sell in their comment, so the point still stands.
>I don't understand this sentence.
You asked the parent "How do you know?". This to be implies "where is your hard proof" - so I read it that way.
So, my point is, in this, and other cases, one does not "know" because they have some hard irrefutable hard proofs or statistics.
What would those be? Some official study cited as saying "94.2% of self-help books are inaccurate and bogus"? There can't be such a thing.
So, there's no point in asking how the parent knows, if by that you mean what's their objective, measurable basis of knowing that.
It's one of the many cases where people can only think and decide for themselves whether what the other says is valid, matches their own observations, makes sense, has some hidden intention/profit motive behind it or not, and so on.
>Right, and it seems to me that the way forward is to share our experiences in good faith to try to find the mutually true union of our worldviews, eh?
Yes.
>FFS, If you can't solve your problems by reading books we should just burn the libraries?
I don't think anybody said that we can't solve problems by reading books. E.g. we can certainly solve math problems, or a medical student learn how to fix diseases through books.
What's said is that self-helf books (and we could qualify it by saying most self-helf books), are mostly profit-driven, platitudes, silver-bullet formulas, that don't work, and don't solve problems for the majority of people who cling to them (which tend to accumulate such books, and run from guru to guru, and method to method over the years).
Of course there's also solid advice in some of those books. Usually of the kind that everybody knows already -- but have trouble following. Much akin the Christian "be kind" etc.
Yeah, you're right. I went for a rhetorical rather than reasonable point there and flopped. Sorry.
> So, there's no point in asking how the parent knows, if by that you mean what's their objective, measurable basis of knowing that.
That's really all I was trying to challenge, that GP was stating their opinion as objective fact.
> I don't think anybody said that we can't solve problems by reading books.
Not to be petty but that is what GP said.
> most problems in your life can't be solved by reading a book, period. Self-help or otherwise.
Eh?
> What's said is that some self-help books are merely profit-driven, platitudes, silver-bullet formulas, that don't work, and don't solve problems for the majority of people who cling to them (which tend to accumulate such books, and run from guru to guru, and method to method over the years).
With qualifications I can agree with that. I know a few people like that, and there are definitely charlatans in the self-help field.
> Of course there's also solid advice in some of those books. Usually of the kind that everybody knows already -- but have trouble following. Much akin the Christian "be kind" etc.
Other people do get a lot of help from those kinds of books. YMMV, eh?
Cheers, well met.
To paraphrase a sibling comment, you sound like a self-help guru yourself, albeit a spiteful one. You deride others' solutions and offer up your own: hard magic-less work. Hard work is as much of a racket as easy magic.
Really? Perhaps you need to think long and hard about what you wrote above.
We got to the moon and in 2020 style civilization, from the technology involved to the social issues and personal problems we overcame, with hard work, not with "easy magic".
And I'm not saying that hard work is a silver bullet because it's not a guarantee for anything, but dedicating yourself to something is good in and of itself, and doesn't rely on seminars, books, arcane knowledge or anything else. It's the opposite of a racket because there is no racketeer.
And my last sentence was not distasteful at all. Depression is generally not solved by one-off sessions with life-coaches. It might for some peculiar reason be the experience of one individual, but that is not how depression works, you're free to consult the literature or talk to a bunch of people who suffer from it.
FWIW, that's not what I was talking about, the guy I went to see is a hypnotherapist not a messiah.
> And my last sentence was not distasteful at all.
FWIW I wasn't offended. (I've had friends insult me to my face when bringing up personal history that is outside their worldview.)
> Depression is generally not solved by one-off sessions with life-coaches.
Right, and that is not what happened to me. The person who helped me is arguably the greatest living hypnotherapist on the planet.
Anyway, IMO you're right about the value and importance of hard work but wrong about books not being helpful.
Cheers!
If you were cured by attending a hypnotherapy session by the guy who wrote the book rather than by reading the book I don't see how it supports your assertion (or what I think is your assertion: that self help books at least sometimes are better than the philosophy, etc., books). I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong, just that it doesn't follow.
Much of psychology (at least in the non-behaviorist arena) and self-help deal with ideas that are really grounded in philosophy proper. Philosophy is the original psychology and the original self-help.
Philosophy is no luxury. It saves lives. It's a deep failure of culture that it isn't a core area of primary and secondary curriculum.
Nah, Neurolinguistic Programming. The "guy" is Dr. Bandler.
> Much of psychology (at least in the non-behaviorist arena) and self-help deal with ideas that are really grounded in philosophy proper. Philosophy is the original psychology and the original self-help.
FWIW the origins of NLP are grounded in Chomsky's Transformational Grammar. That's not philosophy, of course, but it's something. (Computer language hierarchy stems from the same linguistic modeling.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy
> Philosophy is no luxury. It saves lives. It's a deep failure of culture that it isn't a core area of primary and secondary curriculum.
Oh I agree wholeheartedly!
I meant it's a luxury only in the sense that "Even God hesitates to offer anything but bread to the starving man."
Even then I don't deny that many a book of philosophy has seen more than one person safely through their long dark tea-time of the soul.
Would you settle for quit smoking by a self-help book? ;-D
Here's something that blew me away...
My sister just quit smoking. From ten cigarettes a day to zero. We (her family and friends) are all so overjoyed. How did she do it?
https://www.allencarr.com/
She read that book. That's all. When she was done, she was no longer smoking. Within a few days her sense of smell came back and now cigs smell disgusting to her.
Go ahead and be skeptical. If it hadn't happened to my own sister I would be too.
And then get the book for the smokers you love in your life, eh? I mean, you can return it if it doesn't work for them, but if it does... My sister just got back years of her life!
I don't mean to be pushy or saleman-ish, and I'm not affiliated with Carr in the slightest. I only remembered that a book cured my sister of smoking addiction in the time it took to read it after reading your comment goto11, cheers!
Whatever works.
I mentioned this thread to her and she wanted me to add that there was no withdrawal and her behavior didn't change. When she has tried to quit previously it had significant effects on her mood. This time we (her friends and family) didn't notice she had quit until she told us! It was the best Christmas present.
I don't know if that's an evidence based approach, but some people find it useful.
My dad, who was smoking at least 40 a day (and really smoking -- down to the filter, deep inhalations, carried on when he knew it was doing him harm) read it and cut down for a week or so, but then started smoking cigars (in the same way as he smoked cigs), and then switched back to cigarettes.
I think the current evidence strongly recommended a combination of psychological work and nicotine replacement. https://cks.nice.org.uk/smoking-cessation
I don't think that true, but even if it is, so what? That's not what happened to my sister.
The “Have you tried not having a broken leg?” line is from e.g. https://sunflowerssunshine.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/breaking... I don't know if that's the original source.
Actually it's the inverse. A healthy dose of philosophy, literature, history and science are what people suffering from "depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency" can use to liberate themselves, understand their situation, and get above it.
The rest (99% of the self help shelves) is snake oil sold by marketeers to the gullible...
And yes, there's a lot of snake oil out there. (Personally I hate the medallions that are supposed to protect against stray EM! And don't get me started on audiophiles.)
> The rest (99% of the self help shelves) is snake oil sold by marketeers to the gullible...
You haven't read "99% of the self help shelves" have you?
No, but I've fully read over 30 over the years, and skimmed over 100s.
Technically speaking, you don't need to "read 99%" you just need to read a decent number, and assume a normal distribution of quality. In fact if you find out that the most celebrated/succesful are already crap, this makes it even easier.
And unlike literature, science, or deep non-fiction, actually skimming self-help books to distill the 5 solid paragraphs that they've turned into a 200+ page book is the best way of reading it. And for most books, even those 5 paragraphs are mostly platitudes.
Here's the thing: those cheesy books of fluffy platitudes help people.
Take Berg's "The Secret". Its exactly the kind of book you're talking about IMO: the "secret" is literally one sentence just sixteen words long. And yet thousands (millions?) of people got something from it.
Who are we to say that's so wrong?
Frankly, it's weird to me that the "self-help" genre seems to attract opprobrium.
- - - -
Did you get anything out of any of those books you read? Were any of them any good? I'm just curious.
The people in the self-help section don't know what they need or they wouldn't be looking for someone to tell them what they need.
> Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc.
Excluding paid testimonials, one can find at least as many anecdotes of people with those problems saying they were resolved by their own consumption of works in those sections (particularly philosophy and literature) as self-help works, and a lot more who resolved their issues with direct support by someone relying mostly on science works.
With respect, how do you know? Are you a priest or psychologist or psychic?
> one can find at least as many anecdotes of ... and a lot more who ...
I'm dubious but let's grant it for the sake of discussion.
So what? I mean that's terrific if reading Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" straightens one out or whatever but that doesn't invalidate the benefits some other person gets from, say, "The Secret", does it?
Basic logic: if you know what you need, you don't look for someone to tell you what you need.
> Are you a priest or psychologist or psychic?
Would the answer to that question have any relevance to anything no matter what it was?
> So what?
I agree that that's generally the appropriate response to (especially unverifiable) anecdotes offered as evidence but...that's kind of the point, given the anecdote I was responding to.
What if you know you need someone to tell you what you need?
> Would the answer to that question have any relevance to anything no matter what it was?
It might give some background as to why you make sweeping statements about an unbounded class like "people in the self-help sections". I mean, I did it, but it was a rhetorical flourish. If you challenged me on it I would give ground.
I think neither of us knows what ALL the people in ALL the self-help sections of ALL the world need, do we?
> I agree that that's generally the appropriate response to (especially unverifiable) anecdotes offered as evidence but...that's kind of the point, given the anecdote I was responding to.
What's the point? Are we trolling each other here or what?
I say these cheesy self-help books help some people. You say philosophy and literature have also helped some people. I agree with you.
Is there anything more to say? I've been beating this horse for three days now, I think it's dead, and anyway my arms are tired.
- Scientifically tested methods for behavior change (quitting smoking, alcohol/drug use, changing your diet, etc)
- Information and guidance for medically recognized conditions (major depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, etc)
- Books on interpersonal skills in various contexts (relationships, work, etc). And ones better and more factually-based than “Power Laws”, etc.
- Books meant as support or guides for working through various forms of past trauma or abuse, which have been written by trained professionals with clinical experience (ie psychologists with Phds).
Obviously the quality of the material varies and there is a lot of suspect work. Most is the good books also make clear that they do not replace working with a qualified professional. But everything requires judgement and context in life, not just the self-help section.
And I too am a fan of philosophy.
Thank you!
Enjoy :-D
Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Astrophysics For People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
bonus round:
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Shoedog by Phil Knight
The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani
https://fivebooks.com/category/philosophy/
https://fivebooks.com/category/mathematics-and-science/
https://fivebooks.com/category/technology/
They are extremely short and accessible and use plain language. The Dialogues, like any philosophy, have their flaws, but I think they do a great job of teaching a certain way or analyzing an idea.
They were actually written by Plato (Socrates left no written material behind) but are the closest we have to Socrates and Socratic thought.
I personally found a course on the fundamentals of western philosophy super fascinating. Aside from the dialogues the primary sources can be tough going so a class or a reputable-looking reader on each thinker (good used bookstores will have these, or just google and get whatever is most recent and recommended) is recommended. In rough chronological order:
- Socrates - Plato - Descartes (I don’t know much about medieval though and have skipped over it) - Spinoza - Rousseau - Kant (can be dense/boring) - Hegel
The fascinating thing is to read each thinker, absorb their conception of things, and learn what they got _wrong_. And then to read the next thinker and learn what _they_ got wrong!
I listen to tons of audio books while walking, commuting to work, doing chores at home, etc.
I don't necessarily mean this in terms of the fantastical but also in terms of more pedestrian books. I still get to connect with characters (people) in ways I wouldn't in real life, experience emotions that terminals aren't very good at evoking, and have thoughts that wouldn't have otherwise occurred to me.
I don't really remember what I read very well. I can't quote some famous passage and after a few months my memory of the book is reduced to basically a blur. Since HN is ever pragmatic, one has to ask what exactly I'm walking away with in the end. I think reading (fiction) gradually imparts you with a wider soundstage through which to view (hear) life and is generally enriching in that sense. It also, unquestionably, makes you a better writer--good writers are rare in technical fields and learning to write well is really sort of arcane in some ways, so I wouldn't underestimate that. (Nor would I underestimate the value of good writing: bad writing sullies the fuck out of an otherwise good paper.)
Since I'm a student, I'll often have periods for many months where I don't read a single page. But whenever I come back to reading, I always find myself asking why I didn't keep the habit up. Reading encourages a sort of mindfulness (almost a meditation of sorts) that I always find myself missing once I rediscover it when I start reading again.
Have you tried something like audible? I discovered that I get through and retain spoken content much better than site reading. Listening to content makes reading enjoyable and there are so many fantastic books
There are a lot of bad books out there that waste your time (particularly in self-help).
For an example of an excellent non-fiction book that gives sweeping background to a topic that you can’t get from a blog post read The Emperor of All Maladies (about cancer).
For one about Physics read Our Mathematical Universe.
There’s also Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Rationality which was a large collection of blog posts put into book form.
For fiction I’d recommend The Nix for a really good novel.
The difference between good and bad in books is huge and part of the difficulty is that it’s hard to know up front if a book will be a waste of your time.
Books, for the most part, avoid these issues. On average they are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books!
With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence. Don't worry about that shit, worry about finding high-quality content that's worth reading.
> On average [books] are of higher-quality, contain more research, and are better for developing your focus. So read books!
Along the same lines, the time and mental investment required to read a book, for me, produces a unique kind of immersive return. For example, I’m currently reading John Dos Passos’ USA trilogy. It is 1000+ pages of fiction about 1900-1930 America, and it takes time. But that time has given me a rich picture of what the period was like, written by a guy who lived it. Both because I’m spending time and actively thinking while reading. It’s hard for me to get the same thing from shorter-form or visual media.
> With that said, I also think people use the amount of books they read to value-signal their intelligence. Don't worry about that shit, worry about finding high-quality content that's worth reading.
Particular around new year/year in review time, I see many people online talking about reading x books per year. But reading books is not like running miles. It’s definitely about quality over quantity.
To take the example a little further, most people probably wouldn’t brag about seeing 1000 paintings this year.
If you love to read many books then more power to you. There are certainly several people I respect that read hundreds of books annually. But for me, I think a couple of quality books per month is already a ton of good input, and I hope people don’t get caught up in “# books read” as another metric to simply pump up.
> But for me, I think a couple of quality books per month is already a ton of good input, and I hope people don’t get caught up in “# books read” as another metric to simply pump up.
Schopenhauer puts it well:
"As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself."
Good shout, reading isn't a competition! For me at least, it is firstly a hobby, and secondly an opportunity to build upon the ideas of those who came before you.
Because books tend to explore a topic to a high degree of depth, they cover a lot of ideas including things you might have thought about yourself. I've always found new perspectives on ideas I had before to be very refreshing.
A lot of it is publishing economics. For non-fiction, most mainstream publishers are looking for 250+ pages. And that often means adding more examples, more background, more...
There can definitely be a sweet spot between a magazine article and a typical published book. But that's hard to get published through mainstream channels which still have both real (and perceived) value relative to doing it independently.
When I did a book about a year ago, I was certainly aware of hitting page counts. I don't think of it as having a lot of fluff but it's not as short as it could have been either.
My take on this is: although books have inherent advantages compared to other mediums, most of them (that you can easily find) are pretty bad, just like the Internet. You’ve got to do your own adventure finding the rare and good stuff that people usually don’t talk about.
— N.H. Abel (1802–1829)
The benefit of the book-length information product is that a single author went through all the possible sources and used their expertise to give a coherent story on a subject. You can think of the book as someone who read 100 blog posts for you and extracted the useful info from them.
If you have meta-learning skills like being to "orient" yourself in a new space, and you're able to judge the quality of information sources then you should be OK, and you don't need someone else to do the distillation for you.
Also the benefit of having the information all in one place reducing the need for "foraging" on the internet to find info might be worth the time saving.
"Are books worth it? Is it more true for some fields than others? Is it more true for older books?" Yes. Maybe. Maybe.
I love books because they always take the path of depth on topics. A book on psychology will offer more than a single post. From a book, I get list of examples that allow me to remember concepts better, ,and give me ideas on how I can apply those concepts to my own life. Books can also give context to what's happening today. It's easier to catch up on a topic by a reading a book that summarizes a topic / field that it is to look for the information online.
And if the concern is cost, and you're in the US, consider getting a library card and download libby (https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby/). Free rentals of audiobooks from your local libraries.
So yes, I would say reading books is worth it. And the best way to start is for now is put aside your "must read" list. Instead think about something you're personally curious about right now this moment and pick a well regarded book that touches on that thing you're curious about. Don't limit yourself to nonfiction, if you're interested in memory maybe you could pick up Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow or maybe you could choose Tom McCarthy's amazing novel Remainder. If you're interested in live performance maybe you could pick up Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Theater or maybe try Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater.
Then repeat, follow your curiosity again. Pick another book, maybe the first book you read pushes you towards selecting another. You want more from the same author or topic. And don't be shy about not finishing things, sometimes a book doesn't pay off on the curiosity that led you to it. I often start reading a handful or more of books at a time until I find one that really grips me. Or just keep alternating between reading lots of different things for weeks. Kindle & the kindle app are actually very good for this because you can send yourself samples of books so you can try them before investing in them.
I would also say in general, the depth of knowledge shared, and the quality of work put into a book tends to be much greater than 99% of what you find online. It is a lot of work to publish a book, the authors, editors and everyone else involved want to make it worth it. Not that there isn't great online content, but people work hard to make books worth the time investment.
You are missing out. At least try to get out there and read.
For the rest, I'm fine with digital books. Take no physical space, can be easily read on phone/tablets.
To sum it up: for me, yes they are worth.
You're right, books are a lot of effort. However, they teach something that internet articles & videos don't, and that is delayed gratification.
In the digital age, everything is fighting for your attention and it is getting harder and harder to actually focus on anything. Clickbait titles is perhaps the most obvious manifestation, but you can see it in videos as well - many popular videos are edited in a specific way (no pauses between sentences, cut after cut after cut) that grabs your attention as often as possible.
Books let you practice tuning all that noise out and focusing on a single task for a long time, while still providing entertainment. For a knowledge worker, to be able to focus at this level is a very valuable ability!
Deep Work by Cal Newport is a non-fiction book that goes into more detail about some of these ideas concerning focus in the contemporary era.
Another great non-fiction book that really couldn't be presented in another medium is "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind is not an easy read because the ideas presented are complex and wide-reaching. It takes a lot of time to go through and digest, but it is definitely worth it. The Righteous Mind has had perhaps the most impact upon my understanding of humanity and politics out of anything I've ever read.
If you want to see what it's like to read for fun, check out the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin - this is probably the best pacing I have ever experienced in a fantasy series.
And if you think science fiction would be more your thing, try to to take a stab at reading Dune by Frank Herbert. This is a sci-fi classic that essentially codified the genre, and some of the ideas in the series are what made Star Wars the phenomenon it is today. I think you can't get better proof that books can stand the test of time than this!
As a side-note, I think that mastering a musical instrument is a good thing to do for some of the same reasons: it teaches discipline and focus. I've found that playing the guitar is a good foil to programming because it engages a completely different part of my brain that hasn't been engaged during the working day, and it also lets the analytical part of me relax.
Another book related to this that blew my mind already in the introduction is “American Nations”. (Actually haven’t finished the book - the main thesis is explained in detail in the introduction, all latter chapters just go into more depth to a point I’m not as interested in.)
Another vote for Broken Earth trilogy here. Finished it last year (on Audible) and loved it.
She takes time to build a big world and yet connect you with the protagonist's very personal experience
If you want to go breadth, meaning touch a little bit of here and there, yes you can rely on the internet. There are many non-fiction books can help you in this direction, but you do not have to read them.
But if you want to go depth in a particular field, I think you have to read at least some most important books in that field. I do not believe you can learn an advanced field, say quantum physics, by just watching youtube videos or reading online articles. The reason is that many in depth knowledge are only presented in books.
For programming, I think yes you can definitely become a programmer by learning online. But then again, if you want to be an expert in a particular field of programming, you have to read books in that field. Even for data mining and AI those kind of stuff, there are good online courses, but I don't believe online materials can cover important details as in books.
The most cutting edge materials are usually presented in research papers or conference presentations.
In this way, when a really well done book impacts you with some profound lesson about life or the human condition, it hits a million times harder because you've been living in that book's world and are emotionally invested.
The power of a good book is more than just ordinary transmission of information, it's delivering profound thoughts, emotions, and ideas packaged inside the context required to understand them.
Reading a book front to back, committing the important stuff to memory, and leaving the book unmarked, is a fantasy as far as I'm concerned.