How to Choose What to Read

“A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

— Francis Bacon

I used to be proud of reading 30+ books each year. I thought it was the key to gaining a competitive advantage in a world that rewards those who seek to discover and act upon good ideas. But in my constant pursuit of discovering the next “big idea,” I never took the time to digest what I’d just read.

Three years and 100 books later, I eventually realized I had been playing the wrong game. In my quest to read as many books as possible, I lost sight of what actually mattered: learning from the ideas that the best books had to offer.

I had committed the cardinal sin of reading: thinking that all books are equally deserving of my time and attention. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, one of the most important skills you can develop as a reader is knowing how to choose what book to read.

Knowing what to read is one of the most important skills you can develop as a lifelong learner. Spending a bit of time upfront on selecting the right book will maximize the significant investment required to actually read it…