I am not sure either reading practice is optimal

[oursin]

(Or maybe I am being total reading snob here, I will concede.)

Anyway, in a recent Pass Notes in The Guardian apropos the ‘75 hard’: the viral fitness challenge

What is it then? “75 Hard is a transformative mental toughness programme.” He says he spent 20 years figuring out how to master mental toughness.
And what do you have to do? Follow a healthy diet plan, with zero alcohol or “cheat” meals.
For 75 days? I’m beginning to miss dry January. And on each one of those days you’ve got to do two 45 minute workouts, one outside, as well as drink three and a half litres of water.
Two workouts! Sounds hard. Exactly! It’s in the name.
What if … I don’t know, you have a job, or a family, or a life? And it sounds like a fitness challenge to me! You also have to read 10 pages of a book. Nonfiction.
What?! Well a) Only 10 pages? That doesn’t sound hard. And b) What has he got against fiction? Frisella is more into self-improvement books – personal development, finances, entrepreneurship, that kind of stuff.

Doing my brayne 10-page reading pushups- (Wish to know whether one is supposed to increase reps after a certain level.)

However, I am also not sure that ripping through extruded romantasy product, produced under conditions that make one suspect that churning out penny dreadfuls in a Victorian garret may have been preferable, is entirely great ('it's three tropes in a trenchcoat, and this year we're swapping in dragons for last year's werewolves...') even before there's actual plagiarism in the mix.

Or is finding one's reading matter by TikTok hashtag, which one could certainly diss on, this generation's 'Enid Blyton/The Beano at least gets them reading'?

Comments

75 hard

[redbird]

There was an Ask A Manager column about 75 Hard a few years ago.

A reader's manager made the program mandatory as a "team building" exercise. When people questioned it, he told them it wasn't supposed to be a positive experience. The 2021 version also mandated a five-minute cold shower every day, which isn't mentioned in that Guardian column.

Re: 75 hard

[oursin]

WOW

[kaberett]

No it really is laughable that the guy rates All Non Fiction as more useful/informative/improving/etc than all fiction. I've been aware of the thing and sniggering about it to myself for a while.

[lokifan]

For real!

[oracne]

I've been reading a series of "Our Flag Means Death" modern AU stories in which they all play roller derby.

[adrian_turtle]

A former boss of mine once recommended the Jack Aubrey books as a guide to management. They really aren't made to be read 10 pages/day, though.

[oursin]

There was an Ask a Manager thread on fictional models of Good Managers!

[cofax7]

Did they mention Jack Aubrey?

[oursin]

I can't remember - it was an ENORMOUS thread! ETA here.

[lokifan]

extruded romantasy product, produced under conditions that make one suspect that churning out penny dreadfuls in a Victorian garret may have been preferable

The part where one of them wrote like sixty books in five years???? Cannot.

[oursin]

One wonders if it's bit like the process here, in which Joyce Grenfell sent up Enid Blyton.

[silveradept]

Feh. This sounds suspiciously like the idea that misery and self-abnegation builds both character and fitness, which is not the way that anyone actually does things that turn into habits and practices. And reading non-fiction in short bursts is not helpful for developing the reading habit, unless one likes non-fiction.