Have a strange, but nice experience of reading several books on ethnography at the same time (re: yesterdays’s posts). It feels pretty much like hypertext or web browsing – I start somewhere, with the topic I’m working at, move along one book till I need a break or clarification or see interesting reference to another book. Then I switch – either looking for a relevant topic in another book or by following a reference. Then read a bit more, till the next switch…
This is the first time I do that with books. I often read several books in parallel or start from random/interesting chapters, but they are rarely so many on the same topic, so it never feels as hypertext browsing experience.
Of course, I do something similar when working on a paper – going through papers/books/printouts I reference, checking and cross-checking things, but then it’s something that I have read before, over time, and not discovering new ideas.
I like it – as I like being online – being able to discover connections between things as I want when I need – not in the logic their authors assume…
Tags: readingArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/04/08.html#a1539; comments are here.
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