Why Do We Read Books?
All part of a balanced diet
Max Joseph has a great YouTube video about bookstores. It's not great because of its unique cinematography, interesting premise, or inspiring story, though it has all those things. It's great because it has a terrifying scene that puts the act of reading into perspective.
In an effort to develop a strategy to read more books, Max asks Tim Urban1 for help. When asked how many books he reads in a year, Max says one book. One book per year.
Maybe you can relate to this. Many people certainly can. A Pew Research Center survey found that the median American reads four books per year, and about a quarter of Americans have not read a single book in the last 12 months. While a book a year, or even four books a year, may not sound scary, it quickly becomes scary when you visualize it. One book per year means that a thirty-year-old person will only read 50, maybe 60, books for the rest of their life. Look at this bookshelf:
This bookshelf contains about 60 books. Imagine that this is all you will ever read ever. These are the only books you will get to read for the rest of eternity. This is terrifying. Even if you read four books per year like the median American, this should scare you. Take a look at this slightly bigger shelf:
This has about 200-something books. Maybe it looks like a lot to you. Maybe it looks like a little. But if I told you every book you are ever going to read it on this shelf, I think you would feel a bit sad. From where I am, early on in my life, books feel like something there will be an infinite number of. Sure, there are basically an infinite number of books out there, but I haven't really internalized the idea that I can't read an infinite number of books. The last book in my life seems so far away that it just doesn't exist.
Ideas from books
A big selling point for why people read books is that they contain useful pieces of knowledge. I don't mean facts that you can impress people with at Thanksgiving. I mean legitimately life-changing, truly perspective-shifting insights that completely upend your worldview. How many of those will you get from reading books?
They're pretty rare; let's say you might find one in every 50 books. If you read one book per year, you can expect to discover just one more life-changing idea during your lifetime. And you'll probably find it close to the end of your life, limiting the practicality of that amazing insight. At four books per year, you might get four insights—a bit less than one insight every decade.
It's becoming clearer why people who read books seem to be on top of their shit. Someone reading 20, 30, or 50 books a year is gaining life-changing insights far more often. Imagine having your worldview upended for the better every couple of years. Each insight meaningfully changes their life trajectory and, in some cases, increases the value of future insights or leads to subsequent life-changing discoveries, compounding the effect.
For instance, if Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman was a life-changing book that sparked a genuine and lasting interest in physics, it probably also led you to devour other physics books and talk to similarly passionate physics nerds. Now, you can better absorb the information presented in every subsequent physics book and draw on a richer vault of experiences to make connections when reading.
Why do we read?
I made up the one life-changing idea in every 50 books figure. If anything, I think such ideas are rarer. That brings up the question if less than 2% of books provide us with life-changing insights, what's the point of the other 98%? Is it worth spending so much time for rewards that are so far and few between? Should I even bother reading books if I only read one per year since I'll probably never find an amazing insight?
I don't think the potential for life-changing ah-ha moments is the primary value proposition of books. Nor do I believe the raw facts presented are either. We don't remember the vast majority of the information we read about. For the most part, words go through our eyes and out the back of our heads. Instead, I think the main value proposition of books is that they expose us to new perspectives and modes of thinking.
For a book to be published, some other person had to spend a lot of time researching, developing arguments/stories/explanations, and just plain thinking about the topic they're writing about. A Reedsy survey found that the average time to write a book is 6 to 12 months. If someone spends that much time just thinking about a topic, they're bound to have new and unique ways of approaching it.
A book may contain thousands of individual facts, but each is presented from a single perspective and mind. Reading a book is like peering into the author's way of thinking. We get to see their thought processes, how they ask questions, how they process information, and how they construct arguments. The way a book thinks critically about a topic is what we ultimately take away. Sometimes, it's not even something we consciously take away. Repeated exposure to broad and overarching concepts can help us internalize them and recognize them when we encounter relevant scenarios in life.
Over time, these patterns become ingrained in our thinking and can change our lives. Even if no individual book generates a pivotal insight, the aggregate of books will make you a deeper, more critical, and more open-minded thinker. Slowly, reading will shape who you are and the way you think. Major life-changing moments are not the only thing guiding the trajectory of your life. The accumulation of tiny gains also contributes to personal growth and change.
Content diets
You are what you consume. If you want to change how you think, you have to change what you consume. Books are an essential element of any content diet, and content diets play an important role in influencing your interests and pursuits.
A question I have is what is the best way to design a content diet? While I'm not an expert, I have a few principles to help guide my approach. As I will soon discuss more, don't believe all of my principles just because I said them or you trust me. Try things out for yourself and see what works—you have to decide what's best for you with the information you have.
Principle 1: Diversity is important
Like in a food diet, diversity in a content diet is important too. Learn from different types of people. Learn from people who are on opposite sides of a debate. Learn from people who are on opposites sides of the earth. Every person sees the world differently. Learn via different mediums as well. Read, listen, watch, talk, build, write, do it all. If you want to remain relevant and on the bleeding edge, seek out new ideas and gain as many perspectives as possible.
Principle 2: Screening information personally is necessary
You should be open to new ideas but always verify for yourself. Use your own critical thinking and experiences to judge whether something is true or valuable. As Naval says:
Try everything, test it for yourself, be skeptical, keep what's useful, and discard what's not.
Principle 3: Ideas and creators are not sacred
Closely following the previous principle, you probably shouldn't agree with everything one person says. Just because you think someone is smart doesn't mean they have to be right about everything. The same applies to ideas. Just because it was relevant at one point in your life doesn't mean you have to stick with it. Stay nimble and constantly reevaluate.
The story of yourself
More important than your interests and pursuits is the story of yourself. Who are you in your mind? How do you exist in your thought and imagination? What do you value, and what do you believe?
These are all influenced by the information you consume. The answers to these questions will affect fundamental aspects of your life such as the people you spend time with, the goals you set for yourself, and how you define a successful life. We all have the ability to influence who we are. There exists, somewhere, a combination of letters that will change who you are—it's just a matter of reading them.
Tim Urban writes a blog called Wait But Why and is known for accompanying his writing with funny drawings. In his post "The Tail End," Tim draws a visual representation of various milestones remaining in his life which was an additional inspiration for this post.