Reading Lots of Books

Author Shane A Parrish reads 100+ books a year and has a library of 4,000+ books.

Here are 37 tips from him on how to read more & better:

  1. Reading is a long-term investment I make in myself. I don’t have the time not to.

  2. When it comes to reading, my philosophy is simple: Skim a lot of books. Read a few. Immediately re-read the best ones twice.

  3. The person who reads one great book twice is better off than the person who reads ten average books.

  4. There are no rules when it comes to choosing books. We don’t have to read bestsellers, or classics, or books everyone else raves about.

  5. When it comes to reading, you don’t need to finish what you start. As a general rule, people who love reading never, ever finish a crappy book.

  6. Speed-reading is bullshit. Getting the rough gist and absorbing the lessons are two different things. Confuse them at your peril.

  7. If you’re reading fast you’re not thinking and challenging what you’re reading. You’re not being critical. All of that is work. And if you’re not doing the work, you’re only walking away with surface knowledge.

  8. Reading fast is worse than not reading. Reading fast gives you two things that should never mix: surface knowledge and overconfidence.

  9. The secret to reading better is reading lots of good books slowly. This enables you to build knowledge. Knowledge, in turn, allows you to read faster with true comprehension and retention.

  10. Finding time to read is easier than you might think. Waiting for a bus? Stop staring down the street and read. Waiting for a taxi? Read. On the train? Read. On the plane? Read. Waiting for your flight? Read.

  11. There’s an advantage to be gained from reading things other people are not reading because you will gain knowledge and insights that not everyone else has.

  12. The more interesting and relevant we find a book, the more likely we are to remember its contents in the future.

  13. While rereading can seem like a waste of time because there are so many other books to read, this is a misunderstanding of the learning process. The goal is not to read as many books as possible. The goal is to gain as much wisdom as you can.

  14. Teaching others is a powerful way to embed information in your mind. Upon completing a book, grab the nearest (willing) person and tell them about what you have learned.

  15. If we read but don’t reflect, we only have the illusion of knowledge. Making the knowledge or own means digesting, synthesizing, and organizing the information.

  16. Quality matters more than quantity. If you read one book a month but fully appreciate and absorb it, you’ll be better off than someone who skims half the library without paying attention.

  17. Book summary services miss the point. A lot of companies charge ridiculous prices for access to vague summaries bearing only the faintest resemblance to anything in the book. Summaries can be a useful jumping-off point to explore your curiosity, but you cannot learn from them the way you can from the original text.

  18. Fancy apps and tools are not needed. A notebook, index cards, and a pen will do just fine.

  19. We shouldn’t read stuff we find boring. Life is far too short.

  20. The work of reading: Read a book while highlighting heavily. Distill highlights into core insights, written in your own words. Put into a searchable format. Review regularly.

  21. Ignorance is more expensive than a book.

  22. Understanding more of what you read is better than reading faster.

  23. Most people read the same new books that everyone else has read, not necessarily for the ideas but for the social reward of being able to talk about them with others.

  24. Reading the same thing as everyone else is only going to put the same ideas in your head that everyone else has.

  25. Reading speed is a vanity metric. In the real world, no one cares how fast you read or how many books you read last year or last week. All that matters is what you absorb and apply.

  26. A good book, like a good wine, deserves to be savored. Find something worth reading, then chew on the ideas slowly and deeply. Simple but not easy.

  27. Reading for curiosity is better than reading for self-improvement.

  28. If you want new ideas, read old books.

  29. All the time you spend reading something bad comes at the expense of reading something good.

  30. Reading consumes time. And if we equate time with money, it should not be wasted on bad books.

  31. Good writing reads itself you can’t stop reading. Bad writing, on the other hand, feels like a chore.

  32. Not everything needs to be read with the same focus and intensity. Some books deserve a skim, while others deserve your complete attention.

  33. Read old books. Read the best ones twice.

  34. Writing about what you read is the key to turning the experience of reading into knowledge you can use. Writing is reflection.

  35. Reading habits don’t need to be complicated; you can start a simple 25 page-a-day habit right now. While it seems small, the gains add up quickly.

  36. Instead of the news, we should read good books. More than just read them, we should re-read them.

  37. If you’re struggling to stay focused on a particularly difficult or lengthy book, decide to read a mere 25 pages of it a day. It takes only a few minutes to nibble away at a challenging text. Completing a long book in this manner might take months, but at least you will have read it without getting overwhelmed or bored.