我经常被问到哪些是我最喜欢的书。这个问题很难回答，因为提问的人不自觉地把两个不同的问题混淆了:
What are your favorite books?
1.你最喜欢什么书?
What books should I read?
2.我应该读什么书?
Most of my favorite books aren’t personal development books.The best books I’ve read probably aren’t goint to be all that great for someone who’s in the market for inspiring/useful life advice.
大部分我喜欢的书都不是关于个人发展的。我读过的最好的书可能并不适合想要寻找鼓舞人心的/有用的人生建议的人。
The correct, although less satifying, answer is that the best book is the one that teaches you something important you didn’t already know.Given what people know is different, a book might be life-changing for you and boring pablum for somebody else.
尽管这样说不太令人满意，但对这个问题正确的回答是，最好的书教给你一些重要的、你还不知道的知识。因为每个人已知的内容都是不同的,因此一本可能改变你生活的书，在另一个人看来可能平淡无奇。
The Herarchy of Books
书籍的层次
Therefore, instead of trying to offer a suggestion for what are the “best” books, I think the right way to read books is to think of them like an inverted pyramid.
因此，我不想提供建议，罗列什么是“最好"的书;相反，我认为读书正确的方式是把书想成一个倒转的金字塔。
At the bottom, are the best books which provide an entry point to a topic.These books are good ones to start with if you haven’t read very much, or at least haven’t read much on that topic.
在金字塔的底部，是进入一个领域最好的入门书。如果你阅读量不大，或至少在这个领域没读过太多书，金字塔底部的这些书是很好的开始。
As you go up the layers, the books become increasingly smarter and more nuanced, but paradoxically, less helpful.They’re less helpful because they’re providing increasingly sophisticated distinctions.They dig deeper to build more fundamental pictures of the world and fill in more esoteric details, rather than offfer straightforward answers to basic questions.
随着阅读的层级向上，书变得越来越“烧脑”，也越来越细分，但矛盾的是，也越来越“没用”。这是因为它们提供了越来越复杂的细微区别，更加深入地构建世界的根本样貌，填充更加深奥的细节，而不是直接对基本问题给出答案。
The thing is, if you’ve read enough books at a lower layer, the upper layers are actualy really good! They answer deeper questions more thoughtfully than lower layers.
事实上，如果你已经读了足够多较低层级的书，那么更高层级的书相当棒!相比于低层的书，它们提供了对更深层问题的具有思想性的解答。
The problem is that, from the vantage point of anyone within the pyramid, books at levels lower than your own are at best gross simplifications and, at worst, outright false.The assumptions they make and details they gloss over are just too large for them to be taken seriously.
问题在于，从任何处于金字塔中的人的视角来看，低于你自身水平的书往好了说是粗糙、简单化的，往坏了说，则是完全错误的。那些书的假设以及所忽视的大量细节，使它们很难被认真对待。
Books at levels higher than your own feel pedantic.Arguments over minutea, definitions and esoterica that nobody in the real world actually cares about.You want a yes-or-no answer, and instead they spend hundreds of pages to say, “Maybe?”.
而高于你自身所处水平的书读起来则感觉迁腐枯燥。书中关于琐碎的细节、定义和深奥内容的论证，在真实世界中根本没有人关心。你希望得到“是"或“不是”的答案，而那些书花了上百页却只能告诉你“可能?"
Ascending the Hierarchy
上升到更高层级
The goal of any lifelong learning effort, in my opinion, is that you start with the lower levels and proceed up to highter ones.
在我看来，任何终身学习的目标都是从一个较低层级开始，然后继续提升到较高层级。
A mistaken impression of how knowledge works is that the process of learning, or ascending the hierarchy of books, is strictly additive.That is to say, you get the same picture you had before, just at a higher resolution.
关于知识如何运作的错误印象是，认为学习的过程，或阅读更高层次书的过程，是严格增加的。也就是说，在更高位置上看到的是和原来一样的图景，只不过清晰度更高。
Knowledge just doesn’t work that way.As you climb the herarchy, you get more detail and nuance to your existing picture, yes. But you also start to realize how many assumptions, approximations and mistaken concepts were underpinning that original picture.
但知识不是这样工作的。确实，随着你爬到更高位置，可以在已有的图景中看到更多细节和精微之处，但同时也会开始认识到，原来的图景下隐藏了多少假设、似是而非和错误的概念。
Learning isn’t just about fleshing out, but also reorganizing the fundamental substructure of what you’ve learned.
学习不只是充实已有的内容，也是重新组织已经学过内容的基础架构。
Quick example: When I was young I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and thought is was a great book. It taught, I thought, about the importance of saving adn investing to buld wealth.Later, I found critiques that attack the books pro-real-estate, active-management investing philosoph which probably aren’t best for the average investor.
快速地来看一个例子:我在年轻的时候读了《穷爸爸，富爸爸》，并认为这是一本伟大的书。在我看来，它教给我储蓄和投资对积累财富的重要性。后来我看到一些评论文章，批评这本书赞成不动产、积极管理的投资哲学也许并非最适合一般投资者的。
Question: Is Rich Dad, Poor Dad a good book?I still think, for the person who doesn’t yet have the concept of investing deeply understood, it’s a decent one.For the person who has these concepts mastered, however, the more specific advice is probably wrong enough to be harmful.
问题:《穷爸爸，富爸爸》是一本好书吗?我仍然认为，对于没有深刻理解投资概念的人来说，这是一本不错的书。但对于已经掌握了这些概念的人来说，更具体的建议或许是错误甚至有害的。
I don’t think there’s an absolute answer to the question of whether a book is good or not, independent of where you are in the hierarchy.
我认为对于一本书是好是坏，不存在绝对的答案，而取决于你在金字塔中所处的位置。