“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time – none, zero.” - Charlie Munger
“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.” - Napoleon
"The person who doesn't read lives only one life. The reader lives 5,000. Reading is immortality backwards.” - Umberto Eco
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." - Mark Twain
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –
- Emily Dickinson
Reading books was my first and remains my preferred form of learning. Libraries and quiet corners were my oases as a child. I once got in trouble because I was so engrossed in a book I didn’t notice my baby brother screaming in the carseat next to me. For various reasons, I didn’t read much in my 20s, something I regret. I’ve restarted a reading practice in recent years.
I mostly “read” on Audible, mostly on long walks outside. It creates a form of (one-sided) conversation in an environment conducive to thoughtfulness.
I have trained myself to listen at 2x. This was a horrific life choice because it makes other conversations and any live talk painfully sluggish. Allegedly, I also speak fast.
Recommendations for new books are always welcome (email me here). My current interests are obscure 20th century novelists, biographies of prime movers in the Western world, Chinese writers (history, philosophy, social structure, and sci fi), studies of technological progress and the structures that enable / inhibit them, optimistic sci-fi, and the role of Christianity in Western history. I particularly enjoy perspectives and writers who were or are under-appreciated or rejected by contemporaries.