How to Read More Books (And How Not to)

  Hi guys, it's Alex, and if you've been reading me for a while now, you'll have probably noticed the slowly growing collection of books that sit behind me on my desk, and heard me recommending books all the time as well. And this might have given you the wrong impression of me. Quite often people will refer to me as someone who must love reading, and this comes from you guys online, but also from my family and friends that I know personally. I can't blame you guys; I am always reading and recommending books, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I kind of hate reading. And that might sound surprising. I am always reading, after all, and I'm always recommending books, but let me tell you how this works. I don't like reading, but I do like having read. I really like having read, in fact. Reading is clearly the best way to learn new information, but the prospect of actually doing the work in order to achieve this benefit is often a tiresome and daunting one. I don't read much for pleasure, I read often dry, informational nonfiction books in order to support my learning and bolster my philosophical thought. And so, after my supporters on Patreon voted for it, I wanted to make a video giving you some of my personal best tips for reading more books, or more specifically, reading them better, but from a very specific perspective: someone who wants what books can bring but doesn't really like the reading itself. By the way, if you want to see 50 of my own book recommendations, click the link down below for a video that I made giving you just that. Let's jump into it. [classy piano music] I turned off the screen 'cause the computer was humming. Now I've watched a lot of the videos that already exist on YouTube about how to read more, and, probably because I'm coming from a different angle, I disagree with a great many things that they have to say. An example, one of the first tips that people always give is this: Make sure that you have a book on you wherever you go, so that if you get a spare five minutes, like waiting for the bus or just before a class, or something, you can use that spare time to read something. Yeah, no. Don't do that. If you're reading anything other than some kind of simple collection of facts, little tidbits of information or something, this is a bad idea. In fiction, you're reading a narrative. The author will have carefully strung together a variety of stories, and settings, and characters to produce an overall experience that gets absorbed by the reader when they're pulled together. And, in nonfiction, surprise, you're often reading something of a narrative too. Chapters might consist in listing various observations, then comparing them and providing counterexamples, and pulling all the information together into a conclusion that consolidates all of the points raised so far. In order to get the most out of any book, read it how the author intended. Don't put yourself in a situation where you might get cut off mid-sentence or mid-paragraph and have to pick it up again tomorrow. The information won't have consolidated properly. You might only remember half the picture, and not to mention the fact that you'll be unfocused since you'll be constantly distracted by keeping one eye out for the bus to arrive, or whatever it is that you're doing. Read properly, that is to say. This might sound like more of an investment than just whipping out your Kindle when you have a spare moment, But remember, I'm the type of person that reads not because it is enjoyable or convenient, but because it's effective. If you just want to literally read more words, then yeah, fine, read here and there wherever you can. But if you want my own advice, this simply isn't worth doing most of the time. With one caveat; I'll tell you that in a minute. Imagine, by analogy, that you want to be a filmmaker, and you decide that you need to watch more films to learn about it. So the way you do this is by taking your phone with you everywhere, and any time you have a spare moment, you watch five minutes of Scorsese or just a few minutes of Hitchcock, whilst, of course, keeping an eye out for the bus at the same time. Clearly, this would be a ridiculous way to increase your watch time for films. You'd be better off, of course, if you wanted to understand film-making, watching one film in its entirety per week, say, than watching three films, but in this weird, spaced out and erratic manner. Most books benefit from proper absorption and dedicated focus, just like films do. Sure, you can watch a film bit-by-bit on public transport or whatever, but there's a reason people still choose to go to the movie theater instead. So here's the first tip: Give yourself time to read. It sounds simple, but you will get so much more out of a book, even if you only read the first half of it, but carefully and thoughtfully, than if you read the whole thing, but only in small chunks across an entire month or something, and only mostly when you're only half focused. Now, there is a potential problem with this tip. You might think that in your own life, since everyone's life is different of course, these small bits of free time are your only chance to read, and that you can't make any more time for reading. There are a few things to say on this; first, go right now and take a look at your screen time. On your phone or your computer, go and look at the log for how many hours you spend on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, et cetera. Don't get me wrong, I use these platforms all the time, too. But tell me you can't just shave one hour off the time you spend using them. Just, one hour, even across an entire week. One hour of quality reading per week is better than ten minutes of reading each day in this dispersed and erratic style, even though ten minutes per day makes for literally more reading time. Reading more shouldn't strictly be the goal in the first place. Reading more effectively is the goal. One book that you can remember and learn from is incalculably superior to a hundred books that you read and forget. And even if you can only muster that one hour per week, or month, or whatever, you're still miles ahead of someone who just isn't reading at all. [piano music] Now, I mentioned that there is one caveat to this advice. Everything I just said essentially condenses into, "if you're going to read a book, read it properly." But there may be instances in which you can and should, in fact, read books in this subpar, erratic manner, like when you're waiting for the bus. But for me, this is only the case in one specific instance: if it's a book that you absolutely would not have read otherwise. Let me give you an example. I have never read "Homo Deus," but I want to, and I know that one day I will. And I want to read it properly. Now, I could decide to take this book around with me and read it every time I catch a spare moment, but for the reasons I already outlined, I don't want to. I want to read it properly. Now, compare that with, say, "The Reputation Game," which is a book I'm currently reading. This book doesn't particularly interest me; it wasn't on my reading list. I don't care too much for it and I could happily die having never read it. But, it's somewhat interesting and I own a copy. Now, I know that I will never read this book properly, because if I have the time to sit down and properly read a book, I'm going to choose something like "Homo Deus" instead. Since I've kind of written off "The Reputation Game" as a book that I know I won't read properly, there's no harm in reading it while I'm waiting for the bus. Because now we're talking about reading a book, yes, in a subpar manner, but it's this versus not reading it at all. And, for what it's worth, I'm enjoying the book, but I still wouldn't sacrifice my quality reading time to complete it. So that's the next tip: categorize your books. Categorize them into three boxes: First, books you want to read and know you will at some point. Two, those that somewhat perk your interest but you'll never realistically get around to reading, And three, those you just don't care about at all. If you're going to carry a book around with you and read it whilst waiting for the bus, it should be a book in that second category. One that, since you otherwise wouldn't have read it, you may as well get what you can from it while you're waiting for the bus. But those in that first category that are actually on your reading list, is books that you're excited to learn from and actually plan to read and think they're going to be really useful to you. Don't skimp out on these. Read them properly, preferably at least one chapter per sitting so that the information can properly embed itself how the author intended, and so that you're actually focused on the material and not distracted by what's going on around you. This is, by the way, how I personally treat audiobooks. For me, when I listen to an audiobook, my understanding and retention is okay, but much worse than when I physically read something. But this only because I listen to audiobooks where I can't read with my eyes: when I'm doing the dishes or on a walk or something like that. When I'm distracted, that is. So I treat audiobooks like those books I might read whilst waiting for the bus. I only listen to books that I wouldn't otherwise have actually read with my eyes. But this is just me and the way that I choose to listen to audiobooks. Bear in mind that if you do set that hour aside and properly listen to an audiobook without distraction, just like I'm advocating when seriously reading a physical book, It's just as good as reading a physical book, though a bit slower, of course. So, if you struggle to read, maybe you're dyslexic, maybe you just prefer listening, then great. Audiobooks are brilliant. But don't be tempted to distract yourself whilst you listen to them just because it's easier to do so with audiobooks. If you really want to get the most out of the book, the same tips that I'm giving about properly listening in one extended sitting and without distraction, these apply to audiobooks as well. In practice, this means that you might have more than one book on the go at any given time. One that you read in that hour that you save for yourself, either by waking up an hour earlier and reading in bed, or staying up a bit longer, or doing  less scrolling on Instagram. Build yourself up that chunk of time and use it to read this first book. This is your "Homo Deus," right, a book that is on your list of books that you actively want to read. Now in the mean time, you might also have a different on the go for those spare moments of your life, or maybe an audiobook like me. But this shouldn't come from your actual "to read" list, since you won't get the most out of it if you listen to it in this manner. And you should be confident if you're reading a book in this way, in my opinion, that you simply wouldn't otherwise take the time to actually sit down and properly indulge in that particular book. If you don't follow this advice of taking the time to properly read books, you run the following risk: Sure, you'll have read lots of impressive and important books and be able to signal to others that you've done so, but because you read these in a sub-optimal manner, your actual comprehension and retention will be pretty poor. When I think of well-read individuals, I immediately think of Christopher Hitchens, who was famous for how much he read, and how easily he could quote all of the great historical works. But, listen to what he said in his very last interview just before his death, conducted by Richard Dawkins for the New Statesman. So Richard Dawkins says, " And Christopher Hitchens' response, " "I don't have a lot of strategic depth." Of course, Hitchens found great use in being able to quote widely and reference numerous works, but here, just before his death, he appears to be expressing regret that this came at the cost of a full and proper understanding of the things that he read because his reading lacked depth. Now, ask yourself, are you reading books to show off to others with quotes and apparent erudition, or are you reading because you actually want to learn more about the world, and to learn deeply? Choose wisely. [piano music] Now, whatever book you're reading, bear in mind that it's often not beneficial to read the entire thing. This is mostly true of nonfiction, of course, but that's what I mostly read. Before you read a book, ask yourself why you're reading it. If you just think that it looks interesting or something, then sure, read the whole thing. But maybe skip a chapter if that particular chapter isn't doing anything for you. That's not cheating, it's strategic information consumption. And yes, you're still allowed to say you read the book even if you only read most of it. To put it another way, you know that book that you started reading last year, that's been sat on your shelf ever since, because you're definitely gonna get around to finishing it at some point? You're not fooling anyone. Take the damn bookmark out, for goodness' sake. Allowing yourself to get rid of the commitment you make to that particular book, you allow yourself to become excited by another book, and be more likely to actually get on with doing some reading. And if you do eventually go back to that first book, then great. But don't keep it right at the front of your desk with a bookmark in it because it's the one you're "reading at the moment," and you'll get around to it eventually, and you don't want to start another one until you've finished this one. Yeah, look. You're either reading it, or you're not. And there's no problem with shelving it for good, even if you haven't finished it. I mean, do you watch the entirety of every YouTube video that you watch? Probably not. I certainly don't. And I can tell through my channel analytics that most of you don't watch all of my videos in their entirety, either. Thanks for that, by the way. But I hope that, even if you don't finish this video, you still got something useful from it. Just because you don't finish the video doesn't mean it wasn't worth watching. And just because you didn't finish the book doesn't mean it wasn't worth reading. Dipping in and out of multiple books is kind of like having multiple tabs open online. It's fine, and useful, and productive, but don't keep them open forever. It's fine to admit that you just won't finish the job. Close the tab, take the bookmark out; you can always try again later in life. [piano music] Now, things are a little bit different if you're reading for a particular purpose. In this case, you should specialize your reading. For example, say you wanted to learn more about evolution specifically to argue against creationism. In that case, you really don't need to read the whole of "The Origin of Species." Look at the contents and the index, and consider whether your time might be better spent reading 12 individual chapters from 12 different books, each chapter written by a different author from a different perspective, than reading one entire 12 chapter long book by the same author. Maybe instead of reading three chapters from "The Origin of Species," you can read just one chapter from that book, and one chapter from Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True," and one chapter from "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. Same amount of reading, but potentially triple the insight. Sometimes, reading a whole single book will be preferable, of course, but don't assume that this will always be the case. Figure out where the key information is before reading it. Plan your studies so you don't waste time. Reading is not just about finding more time to read, but using that time efficiently. In many ways, you can consider it like studying for an exam. Read and keep the information you need; dispense of that which you don't. If you happen to come across a chapter that wasn't part of your plan but looks interesting, then absolutely go ahead and read it. But don't read it just because it's the next chapter if it's not actually going to be conducive to your educational goals. To give you a practical example, I'm currently studying philosophy at university, and in term time, I get sent a reading list each week that I have to read, and analyse, and write an essay about, all before the week is over. It's a heavy workload, but it's manageable if your tutor is efficient in the readings. I am almost never set entire books to read. Instead, I'm given essays from journals, chapter numbers, sometimes even just page numbers. For example, this book, "Causing Death and Saving Lives." It has a lot of useful information in it about the philosophy of death and killing. But if I'm studying euthanasia, I can probably skip the chapter on killing in war. If I'm studying abortion, I probably don't need to read about the death penalty. Wherever you can, pick and choose the key information, then read it. Don't read it, then decide what was useful. Of course, this only applies when you know what you're studying in particular. If you're just exploring a topic, you obviously won't know what information you want until you come across it in the reading, so in that case, you might want to give yourself a bit more time. Now, some tutors at my university will set their students mountains of material to get through, like by setting this entire book along with a bunch of others, instead of just particular chapters. And the students actually do it. They spend all day in the library reading everything that they're told to, but this often doesn't help them. Their peers may have only been set half the amount of reading, but end up with a better essay. You're simply not going to remember ten books' worth of dense material in a week. It's just not gonna happen. Not only is it easier and more effective to choose particular chapters and specialize your reading, It might well be the only way you're actually going to retain what's in those chapters. Reading should be about how much you mentally learn, not how much you physically read. [piano music] Don't, however, take my illusion to formal education too literally. Here's a massive tip that I never really hear people give: Reread the books that you read for school and university. You might think that you already read a book, and so you're better off reading a new book instead of revisiting it again, but if you were forced to read that book as part of a school curriculum when you were younger, chances are you were being guided in your interpretations by a teacher and may be resentful, having to read it by force, which shapes your image of the book. And constantly being interrupted by classroom tasks and having to listen to some poor nervous kid in the front row read a paragraph aloud, or just the school bell ringing, indicating the end of the lesson. I promise you, if you go back to that same book now and read it on your own time, it will be a whole different experience. [piano music] Okay, now, I know that many people who read regularly enjoy the experience, and probably do it for that very reason. But, as I said in the very beginning of this video, myself, mostly due to what I choose to read, I don't enjoy reading most of the time. But that's okay. If your goal isn't strictly leisure, and is instead, to say, challenge yourself and learn something new and difficult, don't expect to enjoy yourself. Think of it like exercise. Some people, bemusingly, actually enjoy going for a run. They don't do it because they want a good body, or proper health, or something like that, but just because they enjoy the experience. It clears their head, they like the views, whatever it is. Some people, on the other hand, absolutely hate running, but force themselves to do it anyway. Why? Well, because unlike the first group, they're running for an ulterior purpose: fitness, not just because they enjoy it. Now, when it comes to reading, I'm more in the latter camp. I force myself to do it for the sake of an ulterior purpose, that being knowledge in this case. I read for results, not for enjoyment. However, that's not to say that you shouldn't read for enjoyment, or that the two can't merge. Some people exercise for the sake of health but also happen to enjoy the experience as well at the same time. It's the best of both worlds, if you like. With reading, some people only read because they enjoy it. Not for knowledge or a challenge, but simply to enjoy a story, or indulge in a fantasy, or something. And that's great. But if you're like me, and you're reading for the same reasons that I do, that is, for education rather than just mere enjoyment, sometimes it's just gonna suck! You're gonna have to read stuff that's dry, and long, and boring, and tiring. But, you're like the runner on the treadmill who hates running, hates putting in the work, but is motivated by the fact that it will lead to great results. Of course, I sometimes find reading immensely enjoyable, but I almost never go into a book with this as my primary mission. I never go in expecting this. If I went into every single book expecting to enjoy it, I'd have closed most of them before I even finished the first chapter. It's great when I do enjoy reading something, but this isn't a necessary condition of my doing so. I don't expect to enjoy it, but I am grateful when I do. Now, a lot of people make this kind of comparison, saying that reading is for the mind what exercise is for the body. But I don't think this is a perfect analogy. A better one, in my view, is that reading is for the mind what food is for the body. Reason being, unlike proper exercise, food can be bad for you. You can eat like trash. You can eat a bunch of junk and it actually makes your body worse off. Similarly, you can read a bunch of junk and it makes your mind worse off. And sure, it's great to enjoy your meals, I love when they taste nice, but if your primary goal is health, don't expect everything you eat to taste like cake and Oreos. Some of it's gonna suck. And if you're reading for knowledge, don't expect every book to be enjoyable. Sometimes, it's gonna suck. Don't get lazy with your mental nutrition. [piano music] Now, finally, I've got one more tip, and perhaps the most important of them all. Read for yourself, and no one else. This means a few things: I just said that reading is like exercise and nutrition, and will be an effort. But this is only if you're like me and don't really enjoy reading, and don't read for pleasure. You might know that your friend is reading a bunch of books and having a great time, and think that you must be doing something wrong because for you it feels like a chore, and you don't like doing it. But, they might be reading for different reasons to you. They might be reading different kinds of books. They might be reading in different ways. So focus on yourself and your own goals, not someone else's. Second, don't compare your amount of reading to other people, but only ever to your past self and the future self that you want to be. Your friend might have read a hundred books to your twenty, but you don't know what those books were, or how long they were, or how dense they were, how difficult they were to read, how useful and important they were, et cetera. It doesn't matter. People read at different rates. I myself am an extremely slow reader, and I'm constantly getting jealous of my friends who can read way faster than I can. But maybe I remember the books better because I spend more time on them; who knows? Who cares? Your goals should be relative to you, not to those around you. You might be dyslexic, only able to read a single page of the easiest book in the entire world in entire day. But if you do that, you'll still be light-years ahead of those in the exact same situation who decided to use it as an excuse not to try. And thirdly, read what you want to read, or what you think will be useful for your personal goals. It's tempting to read a book because you feel like you're supposed to: because everyone's read it, or because it's a classic, or whatever reason. But remember why you're reading in the first place. If you're like me, this will be to learn things that are interesting and useful to you, not to impress your peers because you read all the classics. Try walking into a room and announcing that last month, you read Dostoyevsky, Plato, Marx, and Jane Austen, and expressing just how much it changed you as an intellectual. Actually, no, don't do that because they'll all look at you like the pretentious asshole that you probably are if you're the kind of person that does that. No one's impressed that you spent hours devouring Kant. And just bragging about it all the time demonstrates that the only reason you did it was probably just so you could tell people that you did it. What they would be impressed with, however, is the kind of well-rounded character, reflective capabilities, and intense patience that reading can allow you to develop. They don't need to know where it came from. They'll be impressed with the results of your reading, not the reading itself. And these results only come from reading properly, carefully, for the right reasons, and for your own development alone. If you're not excited by a book or the knowledge it contains, and it's not useful in any way, then don't read it. Even if that book is on every book recommendations list you've ever seen. Reading is a personal matter, and one of the most defining and formative activities of a person's entire mind. Don't let it be shaped by convention, or empty attempts to impress your peers, or expectations based on what everyone around you is doing. Do it for the right reasons, and do it properly. This, in my view, makes the difference between an avid reader and an avid learner.