Dr. Lee D Carlson, a man that reads everything

[robertk]

Over the past few years, whenever I have needed a graduate mathematics textbook, I often found it reviewed on Amazon by the same person, again and again--and these were usually the only helpful (and incredibly detailed!) reviews. The reviews showed he had clearly comprehended the material within.

What is more amazing is that when I prodded outside of my field to physics and neuroscience, he was still the lead commenter on the references! Consider this.

http://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Neuroscience-Computational-Mathematical-Modeling/dp/0262041995

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Fields-Strings-Course-Mathematicians/dp/0821820125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1298141669&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Enumerative-Geometry-String-Theory-Sheldon/dp/0821836870/ref=pd_sim_b_3

What's even more phenomenal is that he has reviewed over a thousand books like this, a large number of them technical! These normally take months to read. Who is this guy? And how many people like that are there?

Here is his Amazon profile:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3EQQP0LD4Z375/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp

[tlammens]

There is a read more, he has read them over the course of 35 years.

I quote: "A few readers have Emailed me asking how I manage the time to read. But it should be noted that the books I have reviewed I have read over the span of about 35 years. The reviews are posted at my leisure, and it should not be concluded that a book review that is posted 3 days after a prior one implies that the book was read in three days. Most of the books I have reviewed I read long before Amazon was even conceived. The books were therefore not read in the sequential order in which their reviews are posted.

For a technical book, I usually spend a few months (calendar time) studying it. I do not monitor how much real time it takes me to read the book as this is not of interest to me. For a non-technical book, a few days or possibly a few weeks calendar time."

Blame your short attention span ;-)

[pestaa → tlammens]

I wonder why he clarified the timespan to be in calendar time. Is there any metric I'm not aware of in which 'a few months' makes total sense?

[tlammens → pestaa]

Probably trying to distinguish between (24 * 30 * x) hours (where x is the number of months) and just reading while a couple of months pass but not every hour of all those months?

Reading the complete interval vs. just during the interval? :)

[eengstrom]

Addressing your last question:

So how do one find time to read and how do you manage to read a great deal? Always carry a book with you and never leave the house without one. Read outside, read in the bathroom, read at lunch. Read on transit, airplanes, wherever. I've always behaved like this.

If you're interested in developing your own regime, I recommend you practice reading after disengaging from the day and before sleeping. For the past twenty years I've averaged 60 pages a night by getting into bed and reading until sleep arrives. When a section of a book is more compelling than sleep, I'll get out of bed (in a wonderfully quiet house), make a cup of tea and read for another hour.

Reading is completely my time, regardless of what city I am in, hotel or home and it is a habit I have preserved on 100 hour work weeks and vacation alike.

I also avoid ordering books on Amazon, since I know my local booksellers and want to continue seeing them in operation. :)

[shadowpwner → eengstrom]

An e-book reader is spectacular for this. I've finished 4-5 classics in my "between" time.