Why Read Books?

I read a lot of books last year. 52 to be exact.

Some people might ask, why on earth would you read that many? Surely you can’t use knowledge from all of them? Surely they haven’t helped you do anything?

I think for me, the reasons I read books are the following.

They change my identity.

When I am reading books, I get known as someone that reads books. This makes me also interested in other personal development topics and makes me generally interested in a wide range of topics.

It also means that I can connect better with those people that I want to meet. Typically, those other more succesful people, also read books. From all the people I’ve seen online, it is very rare that a successful person has not read books like ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ or ‘Think and Grow Rich’.

Exposure to a wide range of topics

Last year alone I read books about Finance, meditation, spirituality, global history and technology. This constant stream of interesting inputs makes me a much more interesting person. I am able to talk to people about a wide range of topics on a deep level.

It means that when I am faced with challenges, I can reflect on all those examples of people that I have read about, and can consider paths forward that I would not have considered on my own.

So that is why I read books. I find it’s much more interesting to spend my time doing that rather than listening to music or watching gaming videos on youtube.

James