Leaders are readers

“Man is what he reads.” — Joseph Brodsky

“I am a part of everything that I have read.” — Theodore Roosevelt

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” — Mark Twain

“One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey.” — Dee Hock

“Fools read fast. Geniuses reread.” — Maxime Lagace

“Reading should be a pleasure, not a chore.” — Joan Rivers

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• One sign you haven’t done enough reading is if you find yourself agreeing with whatever book you read last. At first, it’s easy to be swayed by any reasonable argument. Once you’ve read a lot, you can see that even the best arguments have limitations.
• Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.
• Reading without taking notes is useless.
• It’s important to read unconventional books as well, not just New York Times Best Sellers.
• Keep in mind that whenever you pick up a good book to read, you are taking an extensive journey into the mind of the author — You have immediate access to the greatest minds of the past and present, and can absorb decades of their toiling research and experience in just a matter of hours/days/weeks!
  • The amount of value you can get from a book is astronomical. You’ve got years, if not decades, of someone’s research compiled down into something that will only take you a few hours to read.
• The purpose of reading a book isn’t to retain information, it’s to refine your worldview just a little bit with each one.
• Book readers tend to live longer than non-book readers. [1] suggests that reading books may not only enrich the mind but also extend life—giving readers more time to enjoy them.
• To judge a book, open to a random page in the middle and see how you like it. I recommend page 87. Close enough to the beginning that it’s still written for a beginner, but deep enough that you’re well past the introduction.
• Naval Ravikant
  • “Never feel obligated to finish a book—treat it as a piece of information on the web.”
    • When deciding what to read, just read whatever grabs you. When it stops grabbing you, put it down.
    • Ruthlessly quit a book you’re reading whenever it no longer inspires/resonates you (必要時要勇敢地放棄正在讀的書)
  • “Read what you love until you love what you read.”
  • “I skip 2/3 of my books. The reason I skip 2/3 is because they’re embarrassing. They don’t sound like good books to read. They’ll sound trivial or silly. Who cares? I don’t have to tell everybody everything I read. I read all kinds of stuff other people consider junk or even reprehensible. I read all kinds of stuff I disagree with because they’re mind bending.”
  • “The truth is, I don’t read for self-improvement. I read out of curiosity and interest. The best book is the one you’ll devour.”
  • “I always spent money on books. I never viewed that as an expense. That’s an investment to me.”
  • “Read enough, and you become a connoisseur. Then you naturally gravitate more towards theory, concepts, non-fiction.”

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How to Effectively Read a Book?

• Prefer “audiobooks” over “physical books”
  • Listening is a better way to read
• Use information dense areas ¹ or sight words ² to fill/prime your brain with the relevant context/patterns
• Read summary on…
  • Wikipedia Page
  • Amazon Book Reviews
  • Goodreads
  • LibraryThing
• Realize that you don’t need to read a book from the first page to the last page. This is especially true for non-fiction, self-help books. I got way more value from reading once I started jumping around (跳/挑讀) and synthesizing connections between topics I’m interested in (主題式閱讀 Synoptical/Comparative Reading) versus going from cover to cover.
• Read the classics that stand the test of time. Do not read books in the same year that they are published.
  • Have a “The Reading Razor (Quality Filter for Books)” — 永遠都有讀不完的新書，所以要慎選 (After all, not all books are equal)
    • Use “The Lindy Effect” as a guide in selecting what to read: books that have been around for ten years will be around for ten more; books that have been around for two millennia should be around for quite a bit of time, and so forth.
    • Quake Books: Books that have…
      • had the most profound impact on me
      • changed me at a deep level
      • “shaked” my view of the world → “View Quake”
      • opened up my mind to something new
      • given me many ‘aha!’ moments
  • Reread/Revisit your favorite books annually (or at different points in the lifetime)
    • Reading one book deeply is more impressive than reading 100 books quickly.
    • Savor the important stuff as you will find more resonance or pick up new ideas by seeing things from different perspectives: focus on points that resonate with you.
    • The great thing about a powerful piece of writing is that you’ll never read it the same way twice. As you grow older, your contexts change, and what you get out of the piece changes too. A book you read at 35 is not the same as when you read it at 25.
    • A good book gets better at the second reading. A great book at the third. Any book not worth rereading isn’t worth reading at all.
• Read from books. Not read through books.
  • Main goal: Find IQ + AA = Insights, Quotes, and Actionable Advice
    • An insight (洞見、洞察) ³ is a realization that changes the way you think, and ideally changes the way you behave.
    • 讀書畫重點時，專注在讓你有「醍醐灌頂、腦洞大開、被敲到頭、觸電感」般感受的文字段落。閱讀的目標不是確認舊觀點，而是拓展新視野。
      • 顛覆你舊有觀念、讓你改變看法及反思的句子
        • 「原來還可以這樣想! 」
      • 能夠解決你當前困惑的觀點
        • 「這正是我需要的答案! 」
      • 讓你內心激動或強烈共鳴的語句
        • 「就是這個! 」
      • 引發新想法、啟發新思路的概念
      • 簡潔有力的金句
  • Passive Leisure Reading → Proactive Information Processing&Extraction
• Incremental Reading
  • Meaning “reading in portions”
  • Instead of a linear reading of articles one at a time, the method works by keeping a large reading list of electronic articles or books (often dozens or hundreds of them) and reading parts of several articles simultaneously in each session
  • Similar to “Syntopical/Comparative Reading by Mortimer Adler, the synthesis of a certain idea/concept/topic drawn from multiple sources.”
• Speed Reading (速讀)
  • Unit: words-per-minute (wpm)
  • Inefficiencies (to be voided/minimized)
    • Fixation
      • The positions where your eyes stop as you’re scanning a line of text
      • We don’t read in a straight line, but rather in a sequence of jumping snapshots (called saccades). Each ends with a fixation.
    • Subvocalization
      • The process of internally pronouncing the words in a text while engaging in silent reading
    • Back-skipping
      • Subconscious re-reading via misplacement of fixation
    • Regression
      • Conscious re-reading
      • Going back and reading the same stuff you just read
  • How?
    • Begin/end each line focusing on the third word in from the first/last word
      • This makes use of the horizontal peripheral vision span/field that is otherwise wasted on margins
        • Untrained readers use central focus and spend 25-50% of their time “reading” margins with no content
        • 不要讀每一行的第一個字和最後一個字 → To reduce eyeball movements
    • Use a pen (with the cap on) or finger as an visual guide/pointer/pacer/tracker/indicator to trace underneath each line
    • Read words in chunks. Don’t focus on just one word at a time, but take in multiple words at once. The goal is to increase the number of words registered per fixation.

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How to Remember Everything You Read?

• To deeply internalize and understand something you’re reading, the best way is to write about it—it’s not enough to just highlight or write marginalia in books: there isn’t much pressure to synthesize, connect, or to get to the heart of things.
• The best reader with the best comprehension with the best focus.

Footnotes

1. THIEVES: (1) Title (2) Headings (3) Introduction (4) Emphasized words (i.e., bold and italicized words) (4) Visual Aids (5) End of Chapter Questions (6) Summary ↩

2. Words that you can recognize instantly without sounding them out (or use any strategies to decode). ↩

3. “Insight is the smallest unit of truth that is actionable. If you cannot act on it, it is just an lifeless abstraction.” — Kunal Shah ↩

[1]

Bavishi A, Slade MD, Levy BR. A Chapter a Day: Association of Book Reading with Longevity. Social Science & Medicine 2016;164:44–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.014.