Here’s the warning: I am not recommending these tips and techniques for anybody. What I did was extreme, and driven by an intense desire to expand my mind and broaden my understanding of the world.
The comfy chair Okay, that sounds absurd. But in terms of discipline, consistency, and mental focus, the comparison is apt. What I did with books was like karate or mountain-climbing for the soul and mind.
back when I was a teenager I decided I wanted to possess genuine wisdom. You can laugh at that if you want. The very word wisdom seems tainted nowadays.
Here’s the warning: I am not recommending these tips and techniques for anybody. What I did was extreme, and driven by an intense desire to expand my mind and broaden my understanding of the world.
The comfy chair Okay, that sounds absurd. But in terms of discipline, consistency, and mental focus, the comparison is apt. What I did with books was like karate or mountain-climbing for the soul and mind.
back when I was a teenager I decided I wanted to possess genuine wisdom. You can laugh at that if you want. The very word wisdom seems tainted nowadays.
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this reading strategy has been a major part of my life for decades. You could even say my
reading strategy has been a major part of my life for decades.
my lifetime reading plan was an extreme sport—only without the physical exertion. I stayed in my comfy chair instead.
in terms of discipline, consistency, and mental focus, the comparison is apt. What I did with books was like karate or mountain-climbing for the soul and mind.
wanted to appreciate the world around me more deeply, more richly—and not just the world today, but also the world in different times and places, as seen by the best and the brightest.
WHAT YOU LEARN IN CLASSROOMS IS IRRELEVANT, AND SOMETIMES EVEN WORTHLESS—YOU MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN EDUCATION
I always begin the day with a book. I read at lunch. I read at dinner (until I got married). I read at night before going to sleep. Then I start the cycle again the next day. I remember times when I was so exhausted by the demands put on me that I felt I had reached some limit of psychological and physical endurance. But I still set the alarm clock an hour or so earlier than necessary so I could have my reading time. Giving up on that would have been like abandoning my own core principles, or selling out to the system.
I always begin the day with a book. I read at lunch. I read at dinner (until I got married). I read at night before going to sleep. Then I start the cycle again the next day.
I READ FOR MIND-EXPANSION NOT ENTERTAINMENT, AND SEEK OUT CHALLENGING BOOKS
I still set the alarm clock an hour or so earlier than necessary so I could have my reading time.
reading is like meditation to me. It refreshes me. It centers me. It energizes me.
I was reading Sartre’s Being and Nothingness in the mornings before going to the office. The book was almost poetic in its obtuseness, but it was perfect for my needs—I wanted something that took me out of my day-to-day concerns, and nothing does the trick quite like 800 dense pages of French existentialism.
If you’re serious about an education, you should read at least one or two long, challenging books each year.
When other people pick up light beach reading for the summer, you ought to grab Thucydides or Gibbon or Musil or Woolf or Schopenhauer
When I was 18, I tackled War and Peace. When I was 19, I did Don Quixote. The next year, I read The Brothers Karamazov, and after that it was Moby Dick and The Tale of Genji and The Magic Mountain. And I’ve kept doing this for decades.
IT’S OKAY TO READ SLOWLY I tell myself that, because I am not a fast reader. I can do speed reading, if it’s absolutely necessary—but I find it painful and exhausting. My natural reading pace is languid, almost lethargic. [
Proust is one of my favorite authors, but I could only handle his ultra-dense writing in small doses. So I read through his 2,000-page novel at the pace of seven pages per day. I started when I was a teenager, and got to the final page shortly before my 30th birthday.
now I believe slowness was a benefit. My learning was deeper and more mind-expanding because I didn’t rush it.
Life is not a race. The journey is its own reward. If we could make the trip instantaneously—like they do with those teleporters in Star Trek—it wouldn’t be worth anything.
Wtite on slow travel
For poetry, hearing the sounds is essential.
NONE of these books had any relationship to my daily activities and responsibilities. That’s the way I like it. My reading is holistic, not project-driven.
My lifetime reading plan has nothing to do with practical matters like getting a paycheck.
My reading plan is the fuel for my inner life, which I tried to keep separate from my career (another reason why I’ve never discussed this before). Eventually the two things—inner life and external vocation—got connected, as I describe below. But nobody was more surprised by this than me when it happened.
I IDENTIFY GAPS IN MY READING EDUCATION, MAKE LISTS OF BOOKS I NEED TO READ TO FILL THE GAPS—THEN I READ EVERY BOOK ON THE LIST The first time I did this was around the time I graduated from Stanford Business School. I had now completed my formal education, but there were still huge gaps in my learning—so many essential books that I still hadn’t read. So one day, I sat
I IDENTIFY GAPS IN MY READING EDUCATION, MAKE LISTS OF BOOKS I NEED TO READ TO FILL THE GAPS—THEN I READ EVERY BOOK ON THE LIST The first time I did this was around the time I graduated from Stanford Business School. I had now completed my formal education, but there were still huge gaps in my learning—so many essential books that I still hadn’t read.
day, I sat down and made a list of the 50 most important books that I still hadn’t read.
one day, I sat down and made a list of the 50 most important books that I still hadn’t read.
When I finished all those titles, I decided that I now knew novels, poetry, social studies, and philosophy at a deep level, but I still lacked sufficient knowledge of history. So I made another list of history books, going back to Herodotus and the Egyptians and Sumerians, and continuing all the way to the modern times. Once again, I read every book on the list.
By the time I reached the age of forty, I was well read.
I could match up with professors at Harvard or Oxford. And here’s the oddest part of the story—I could even talk to them about their specialties, but for me this was all disinterested
A hobby doesn’t deliver the kind of results I got from my reading plan. Stamp collecting won’t do it. Video gaming won’t do it. Playing bridge won’t do it.
Once I got into my forties, with all this deep learning behind me, it somehow gave me an aura of gravitas I’d never possessed before. People started treating me differently—and not because I made any demands. Not in the least. I’m not the kind of person to make demands.
And it wasn’t like I was quoting Shakespeare and Plato all the time. I tended to keep this literary education hidden from view, except when it was absolutely relevant to the situation at hand—at least hidden from direct view. But the nature of this kind of training is that it still shows up indirectly. And that’s what happened in my case.
When I spoke before an audience, this behind-the-scenes project seemed to give my words an authority and resonance I hadn’t possessed in my youth. People were now trying to hire me for all
WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I READ OLD BOOKS. WHEN I GOT OLD, I READ YOUNG BOOKS
Most young people listen to new music and only become less interested in the current hits when they get older. The same thing tends to be true of books too—the younger generation wants to read stuff that’s current and hip and up-to-date.
When I was twenty, I almost never read a book by a living writer. Nowadays, most of the books I read are by living writers.
Some people wonder why I didn’t start writing about literary subjects until I was middle-aged.
I also enjoyed the old books when I was a young man. I found it liberating to master the tradition. That was far more exciting to me than reading a stack of bestsellers of the current moment.
know people who love old books, and continue to read them all their lives. I also know people who love new books and never change. And there are those folks who become more traditional as they get older. But my calculated plan to shift to the new as I get old is an outlier.
