When books are overkill...

[ficbot]

A recent trip to the opera with my mother exposed a glaring lack in my education I know nothing at all about opera. I could name maybe three operas if I tried really hard (and one of them is Don Giovanni, which I remember mostly because I had a small Mozart phobia as a child thanks largely to my dad playing this record). It simply never crossed my path and I know nothing about it.

So I went home, looked up the opera we watched on Wikipedia, and feel like I have a pretty good overview. I don't really desire to know more than what Wikipedia told me. I did feel a little like I should plug this gap in my knowledge, but them, there are lots of things I don't know about. History is another area in which I am weak, and when I trolled Project Gutenberg for some books on that, I came across five-volume biographies, a 32-volume history of Canada (and it only goes up to the building of the railroads---imagine how long it would be if we carried it through to the present day!) and what appears to be a diary that Pepys kept for several decades. Does anybody really need that much information about any of these subjects? Isn't it just a little too much? What would I gain from a five-volume biography that I could not get from reading something shorter?

I guess I feel like there is just too much out there I want to read to spend years of reading time reading about what Pepys had for breakfast. Am I missing something here?

[wyndslash]

information overload?

i think you should just read what you like, though i also definitely need to brush up on my history xD

[rogue_librarian]

There a libraries out there (with plain ol' paper books) with billions of pages that I am never going to read. It's still vaguely comforting to know that they exist, and some people do make use of them (and I could if I wanted to). I feel the same way about electronic resources.

[Ea]

If you only want a little general knowledge about a subject, yes books like that can be way overkill. But if you are doing research into something, perhaps a specific event with a narrow timeframe, then you need a lot more detail. Also, diaries like Pepys' is very useful for someone studying that time period - knowing what he had for breakfast (and perhaps what his acquaintances had for breakfast) tells us more about people living then. Helpful for both historians and fiction writers. Eventually that knowledge will filter down to you through the Wikipedia page or a historical novel in a more generalised form. It all depends on what you need to know the stuff for

[neilmarr]

My grasp of history ain't too bad for a layman. Most of what I know, though, surprisingly comes from well researched historical 'fiction' (and follow-up research). In younger days, I found straight historical non-fiction daunting because there were too many gaps in my knowledge to fully place such information in world and time context. These days, though still a huge fan of historical fiction, I find non-fiction on specialised historical figures and events as gripping as a novel. Neil

[amward]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

My grasp of history ain't too bad for a layman. Most of what I know, though, surprisingly comes from well researched historical 'fiction' (and follow-up research). In younger days, I found straight historical non-fiction daunting because there were too many gaps in my knowledge to fully place such information in world and time context. These days, though still a huge fan of historical fiction, I find non-fiction on specialised historical figures and events as gripping as a novel. Neil

When I was at school I was always being held up as an example for my general knowledge.. I got it from reading and mostly reading fiction. It's amazing what you can learn from someone else's research. So now I have this brain full of (mostly) useless facts, although these days it's getting harder to recall them. Trivial Pursuit anyone?

[Frida Fantastic]

Heh. I'd love to read more history too, but we can't be experts or enthusiasts about everything. We're all going to be ignorant about some subjects, the trick is to be ignorant of the subjects that you don't mind being ignorant about

[elemenoP]

I find this post a little odd. Sure, if you have only a passing interest in something, then Wikipedia is great. I have no idea who Pepys is (and not even enough interest to want to look him up on Wikipedia!) but I'm sure there is someone out there who is doing a dissertation on Pepys or has some other reason to want deeper information.

eP

[wayrad]

In defense of Pepys, he lived through and wrote his impressions of a great deal of interesting history. He also had an exciting and varied personal life, not all of which made it into the PG (in both senses of the acronym) edition...

[Assassin]

You also have to consider the point in time we are in. I remember seeing a graphic of an upside down pyramid showing that the amount of technical information increases something like 100 fold every decade. And the same is true in other fields too. (Maybe not the 100 times amount, but a staggering number) As an example, the electronics field barely existed thirty years ago and today we all have to retain information on how to operate the buttons on everything we own from cars and TVs to cell phones etc. No one can absorb all of the detailed information that is available today.
I think that's one reason most people today vote on their perceptions of candidates and issues vs. getting involved and wading through the staggering amount of information, both pro and con, true and distorted that is available.

[witeowl]

The desire to know only cursory information of most fields is nothing new. Before Wikipedia, we had encyclopedias*. No one can know everything about everything, and no one really wants to. (Worse yet, no one wants to have a conversation with the person who knows everything about everything; it's beyond boring.)

* Technically we still have encyclopedias, but they're all but irrelevant.

[SensualPoet]

My first opera outing was Götterdämmerung ... marvelous introduction to the art. I highly recommend Wagner, as well as Mozart. A few Italians dabbled in the form as well.

It is nearly impossible to understate the value of Wikipedia: immediate access to (usually) accurate information about an incredible range of topics is helping move our species to a more elevated another place.

I think the insight here is not that books have too much information, but that, in a sea of information overload, it is getting increasingly easier to instantly find what you are looking for and then graze from there. And for this latter capability, Google's (ongoing) role is also hard to underestimate.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Assassin

As an example, the electronics field barely existed thirty years ago

You must be joking.

[anamardoll]

This thread is making me think of A.J. Jacobs.

http://www.amazon.com/Know-All-Humbl.../dp/0743250605

[Assassin]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

You must be joking.

Not at all. Think back thirty years. Tube TVs, minimal electronics in autos, personal computers just getting started, (my first PC had a 750 meg hard drive, how much memory does your cell phone have today?, radar and sonar were playthings compared to what is used by the military today just in the guidance systems. The original cell phones we had at work were carried in a small overnight bag. It's startling to think where technology will be in another twenty years.
Yes technology was there but in its infancy compared to today.