Why I Read

A growing collection of reasons why I read. Some are my own thoughts, others are snippets and maxims of others.

• Books have a better hacking power. While algorithmically supplied fake news have their falsification available just a click away, a book can monopolize the brain for weeks.
• Harold Bloom says reading improves the congitive ability. It feels right that Shakespeare, Austen, Plato, and others would have a greater effect on that conginitive function improvement versus the latest author found on a bookshop shelf untested yet by the hands of time.
• Harold Bloom you are learning to speak with yourself...

• From my experience with the Great Books Challenge classical books that have been selected by hundreds or thousands of years worth of scholars as canonicial far more greatly affect mental models. These mental models also have a greater sticking power.
• Nietzsche said in his Ecce Homo that reading was his way of recuperation. Taking reading seriously aids to recuperation & relaxation.
• Net win in a world where most people consume content for 15 seconds. Being able to sit and read focused deliberately is a fading skillset, that compounds positvely for the reader.
• Harold Bloom you run out of options of friends living to learn from...

• Most content we consume nowadays has been written in a few hours to satisfy someones manager at a publishing house, media house or otherwise. Thus the content isn't deep, it's shallow. It doesn't come from an expert or someone that has dedicated a considerable amount of their time on our planet to it's collation. Books however are usually written by a person who believe they have an advantaged oversight of a subject. You get their best ideas, usually from an entire life.
• As great literature ages, people don't believe it will contain the "modern" knowledge they need. Even if some great book written 500 years ago contains the exact knowledge they seek, people won't find it. I prefer to at least attempt that hunt.
• Inside Jeremy Nixon Google Doc he listed ''Read. 4 books a week was the time of greatest idea flow for me. Doing that as a lifestyle seems insane - it looks something like 30 hours a week. But if what it’s replacing is internet reading or other forms of BS then I’m good.''
• Going down rabbit holes seems to give it's own reward with some understanding that gets shown after time invested in reading.
• Grows cognitive standards along with an understanding of aesthic value. Something not acquired through the internet...

• Diana Athill reads for the voice and the personality of a writer rather than the plot. The two she keeps returning to are Byron's letters and Boswell's diaries.

Last updated 2026-08-14