反复阅读最好的 100 本书Read the Best 100 Books Over and Over Again
Naval： 《无穷的开始》最让我想起《哥德尔、艾舍尔、巴赫》，因为它内容极其庞杂，把许多不同学科的思想编织在一起。它非常难懂，也很难从头到尾完整跟读。每个人都声称读过它，但据我所知，真正读懂的人寥寥无几。
我在大学里第一次接触到侯世达的作品时，就有过这种经历。我记得我把它放在书架上，然后开始读，开始读，开始读。大约一年以后，我大概才读到一半。然后我就没时间了。我还有别的事要忙。
我记得自己会去跟大学里的朋友搭话说：“这本书很棒，你应该读读。”一周后他们就会回来说：“是啊，我读了《哥德尔、艾舍尔、巴赫》，很棒。”当时我觉得自己是大学里最蠢的人。
直到多年以后，我才意识到根本没人读过它。人年纪越大，就越有底气做这种坦白：要么说“我没读过”，要么说“我以匀速读完了它，遇到看不懂的地方就继续往前走”。
我承认，直到今天我也没有读完《哥德尔、艾舍尔、巴赫》的全部。但至少到现在，我已经通览了一遍，找到了自己最感兴趣的部分——也就是哥德尔的部分——并且确实读了，也努力去理解它们。我跳过了那些不太吸引我的部分——也就是巴赫的部分。
《无穷的开始》也是如此。我社交圈里的每个人书架上都有这本书。许多人声称读过，但真正读懂的人寥寥无几。
我想回到一个观点，它最早是由一位名叫@illacertus的用户在 Twitter 上妙语道出的，他大致写道：“我不想读所有的书；我只想把最好的 100 本一遍又一遍地读。”
我目前陷在一个循环里：至少在科学领域，我只打算把《无穷的开始》和《真实世界的脉络》一遍又一遍地读，直到完全理解为止。如果我在 20 年前就读过它们，我现在懂得的会多得多，因为那样的话，之后我就会选对书、选对作者来读。
这是一本很难跟读的书。你应该把精装版和电子版都买下来，这样你就拥有了它的全部。
Brett： 还有有声版。
Naval： 能用什么方式获得就用什么方式。如果你能一口气读完，并在深层次上理解所有要点，那恭喜你。但如果不能，我们希望能为你把它拆解开来。
Naval: The Beginning of Infinity reminds me the most of Gödel, Escher, Bach in that it is very wide-ranging and stitches together ideas from many different disciplines. It’s very difficult to understand and follow completely. Everyone claims to have read it, but, as far as I can tell, very few people understand it.
I had this experience in college when I first found Hofstadter’s work. I remember that I put it on my bookshelf and I started reading it, and I started reading it, and I started reading it. About a year later, I was probably halfway through it. Then I just ran out of time. I had other things going on.
I remember that I would approach my other friends in college and would say, “This is a great book, you should read it.” And a week later they’d roll back and say, “Yeah, I read Gödel, Escher, Bach. It was great.” And I felt like the stupidest person in college.
It was only years later that I realized nobody had read it. When you get older, you get more confident in those confessionals, where you either say, “I didn’t read it” or “I read it at a constant pace and when I encountered something I didn’t understand, I kept going.”
I confess, to this day I have not read all of Gödel, Escher, Bach. But at least at this point, I’ve gone through and found the parts that were most interesting to me—which were the Gödel parts—and did read those and try to understand them. I skipped the parts that were not as interesting to me—which were the Bach parts.
The Beginning of Infinity is similar. Everybody in my social circle has it on their bookshelf. Many claim to have read it, but very few have gotten it.
I go back to this point that was first eloquently stated on Twitter by a character named @illacertus, who essentially wrote,“I don’t want to read all the books; I just want to read the best 100 over and over again.”
I’m currently stuck in a loop where, at least in science, I’m only going to read The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality over and over again until I understand them fully. If I had read them 20 years ago, I would know a lot more, because then I would have chosen the right books and the right authors to read subsequently.
It’s a hard book to follow. You should buy the hardcover and electronic versions, so you have it all.
Brett: And the audio version.
Naval: Get it every way possible. If you can get through it in the first sitting and understand all the points at a deep level, then congratulations. But if not, we’re hoping to break it down for you.