Crappy Books

[motiv]

Hi guys, i have just come to a conclusion. You know, one of those conclusions you get every once in a while which you want to share it with someone but, like many of us on these forums at least dont have anyone to share them with. So i figured why not share it with you guys.

Anyways this is what i figured out. Ive been in school for... 5 years now, kinda dropped out of college midway but im picking it up again. I realized every time i took a class, the books I bought for that class it always seemed 80% of the book is complete bull crap. For example, ever taken a psychology class, or any class along tha topic? sure you have, its a requirement for all schools, ever realize you only read 6-7 chapters? leaving the other half of the book completely untouched? now compare that with MOST of your classes you ever took. For me at least same **** thing.

Sometimes i feel that i could have written or rewritten some of those books and sum it down to a pamphlet, ok i may be exaggerating but i know i can cuts load of fat from these books. Seriously, im taking multi-cultural studies and the author, "david matsumoto" has completely mastered the art of "drawing bullshit," repeating many ideas again and again, and drawing out what a well written sentence would give you into a 5 page read-a-thon-omfgripmygoddamneyesout.

Now my conculsion... I think the best school related books ever written in the world, are books that the author DID not want to write, and the worse are the books the author did want to write. Law books (havent read any) math books, some history books i always found the most useful because every page needs details to study. The shittiest books are psychology books, philsophy books and books related to abstract ideas- because the authors i think feel they need to strech a book to 600 pages just to say "this is how much knowledge i dont really have." anyone feel the same here or am i alone on this boat?

 

[Matt]

I've got to disagree with you. It seems to me it's more a matter of what you personally are interested in. Thoroughness is very important if you want to familiarize yourself as much as possible with the content of social science books.


And I personally read the entirety of my psychology textbooks, even the chapters we don't go over in class.

 

[Kristen]

I agree. I took psycho---boring , I 've no clue how I passed, book sucked--I hated it...dog experiments...shoking rats...
then abnormal psyco--all about ppl--much better . I used to like law books, bought a few..until I was sued...now can't open them..lol...reminder of that evel lawyer and mean judge...lol
it depends if ur into philosophy the book should be alright.
But I can't stand text books they make these days...OMG..like a freaken coloring books for preschoolers. Each page is a rainbow....such a distraction, I cant concentrate on text..lol
yea books suck big time...

 

[motiv]

There was a time when i was interested in anthro. class. My grandpa kept his old social anthro book, think he couldnt resell back to school or something and i twas interesting to go through it, it was a old book, written in like 1930's and it was filled with "studies" about why some people were inferior, like how africans have slighty differnt shaped skulls then european counterpart which made them more criminal, more barbaric, more child like. It was a interesting read because most of it is what we would considered false now, if not racist by our standards 70 years later... Yet back then it was the scientific front, and although science can admit being wrong, the authors of that book in the end wrote a 800 page book streching out their studies and explaination of how much they really dont know. I kept in mind that book was written with that era's way of thinking but the same art of bullshitting the students is still as clear as it was now as it was 70 years ago.

 

[motiv]

My problem with philsophy books is that most phil. books emphasize western thinkers, with a memo note attached for other thinkers around the world. I am very bothered that phil. major people in the united states tend to think without their precious thinkers, like socrates, plato etc. etc. the world would be messed up, that for some reason without thier funemental ideas we would not be the way we are today..

it is if American phil. classes (from central washington uni. and Uni. of Washington) choose to be ignorant to think that the rest of the world is ignorant to the same ideas. for example, Rene Decartes, is famous for coming up with the idea of "i think therefore i am." Little do phil. majors know that if Rene Decates did not figure that out someone else would have, or someone else already has, but he/she was busy doing something productive like work. Im willing to bet Rene Decartes was just some rich guy with too much time on his hands, they always tend to be. : /

 

[evanescencefan91]

I agree. I took psycho---boring , I 've no clue how I passed, book sucked--I hated it...dog experiments...shoking rats...
then abnormal psyco--all about ppl--much better . I used to like law books, bought a few..until I was sued...now can't open them..lol...reminder of that evel lawyer and mean judge...lol
it depends if ur into philosophy the book should be alright.
But I can't stand text books they make these days...OMG..like a freaken coloring books for preschoolers. Each page is a rainbow....such a distraction, I cant concentrate on text..lol
yea books suck big time...

holy frick, you were sued!? that tottaly sucks man, tottaly sorry about it>,what happened, or it's okay if you don't want to answer.

I took a short philosphy class last year and I liked it, sometimes the text can be hard to read, but ussally the teacher goes over it in class, so that helps. we Studied Socraties and Plato and Machiavalieo.
I agree though that math books are the worst, My stats book doesn't have any good example problems and it's way more text then how to actualy solve a problem.

I'm ythinking of taking ap pysche next year, my sister took it a few years ago and said she liked it. But ya, abnormal pysche sounds really cool.

 

[IgnoredOne]

I disagree with you on the fundamentals, but it seems that this is a matter of personal preference. You seem to enjoy books and topics of study with direct and immediate application to the world we live in, which is fine, but doesn't necessarily negate either the importance or the validity of more abstract fields. Of course, I'm also quite biased as I am a professional writer and speculate a lot on said abstract fields.

To continue on, though, I agree with you that many textbooks are poorly written. Philosophy, though, is a certainly a valid topic, and while I don't think that any philosophers became rich for their rambling thought, I do believe that a certain degree of wealth was necessary for them to have the freedom and time to muse. This is not necessarily a bad thing - many of the world's greatest ideas and concepts came from what you might call "idle rich."

Potentially a great example of this is in Western democracy as we know it. With many of the original and speculative concepts coming from men like John Locke, the American founding fathers took it upon themselves to try to apply a version of it when they wrote the Articles of Confederation and later, the Constitution. As historians have tried to trace their areas of thoughts, we have found literally thousands and thousands of pages of dissertations, personal letters and diary entries - and from this ocean of information and thought, small pearls of wisdom have emerged. And from these small beginnings, I believe, have set the foundation of modern government.

What would the world be like without Plato, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Voltaire, Rousseau, Ayn Rand or Marx? I don't know, because I live in a world where these thinkers have been born in, and have added their voices to the collective consciousness of humanity. Would our world be the same if they never had a chance to speak and share their ideas? Your guess is as good as mine.

Regards,
IO

 

[NeverMore]

I think I get what you saying motiv, some of those books do seem a bit stretched out with a bunch of added details that aren't necessary at all or are just filler. As a matter of fact I bought a book for my psychology class last semester for like 100 bucks and never picked the thing up once to read it, I could have done without it entirely, I loved the psych class it was great I got an A which I was proud of and everything but that book was horrible it wasn't necessary for the course at all, then when it came to selling it back they said they would give me like 5 dollars for it, and I was like f*** that I'll keep it I guess... I do that a lot with my text books, I've got quite the useless collection

But text books in science are for what I've seen, fantastically written and chockablock full of facts and interesting stuff that makes reading it bearable or even enjoyable, i don't know maybe it all just depends on your opinion and how you feel about the subject.

lol with the omfgripmygoddamneyesout, try reading The Yellow Wallpaper and all it's literary critic's article and not wanting to kill yourself after, I'll give you a hint, it's hard

 

[evanescencefan91]

I really like those books of random facts those are fun to read,

hey I've heard of the yellow wallpaper, insnt it about a chick who goes crazy and thinks that there are people in the wall paper?

sounds interesting, i love books about mentally unwell people like the bell jar and girl interupted, i wonder why that is, maybe it's because i find i can relate to the characters.

 

[Matt]

To be honest, I think it's more a matter of writing style than content. Maybe you've just had the misfortune of having teachers who picked textbooks by incompetent publishers and/or writers.

And as for the original post, how do you know whether or not the author wanted to write the book? Is it stated in the foreword?