Why Nobody Reads Books Anymore & Should We Be Reading More?
- Jan 31
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 3
As someone who has read many books, enjoys writing, and has published a book myself, I found it interesting that in the past year I have not really been reading many books. I think that to understand why this is the case, we need to take a big picture perspective on how we think about the purpose of books, and what this means about how we think about learning more broadly.
Check out our latest podcast episode where Aila and I dive into our experience reading ... and not reading books.
Do you, like, read books?
I think the framing of "read book vs not read book" is flawed. Books, as a category, is enormously broad and there are so many reasons why you could be reading a book. Which is why in order to talk about books, I think we need to talk about life.
I think this is one of the biggest problems with how we approach young people, and specifically how we teach in schools. In order for any learning to be retained or applied we need to have proper context, and proper context should mean our life. We need to understand how to think about our life, where we're going, what we care about, and what matters, in order to know how any given book fits into that.
My Life
During the course of my 16 years of life, my understanding of my life has changed drastically. As a very young person, most of what you're really doing is exploring. You need to have enough data in order to move onto the problem of what to do with it. To tell young people to read books at this stage makes a lot of sense. You might not know what you're reading, but you're giving your brain more data points to work with. Ideally, good data coming from good books.
"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." - Albert Einstein
Fairy tales and fictional novels are great for this stage of life because it creates an all encompassing narrative in which all the information has a place. This is important when you are lacking data because to read a book about the "world", you probably need to know more about said world before that book is going to make a lot of sense to you. However, in fairy tales you are learning about an imaginary, much simpler, much smaller world that doesn't need any context to make sense. However, just because it's not about our world, doesn't mean it's not valuable. It still gives you a lot of data points to work with, especially about human nature. More importantly, it's data that's more likely to be retained and understood.
However, as you start to get older and learn more about the world you start to want to know more about what all this information means for you and where you're going in life. When you reach this stage, it's very important you get the right information.
What Is A Good Book?
It's hard to know what someone means when they say a book is a "good book". Often, that means the book spoke to them in one way or another, but that just means something about that person's unique experience resonated with the words in the book that may or may not match your experience with the book at all.
There are many things that could make a book "good". It could be well written, engaging, convey valuable information, make you feel understood, help you understand something, etc. However, I think the most important factor to consider, is if the information is true.
Now, this is a complicated question. What is true? What does it mean for truth to be in a book?
I think this question is two fold:
Is the content of the book honest, in pursuit of truth, and with conclusions that lead to better outcomes?
But alongside this we need to consider how the reader places this information. For example, you could have a fictional novel depicting an experience of a character making very bad decisions and detailing the thoughts, emotions and perception behind it. Is it bad information? It depends on how you understand the book. If your takeaway is, "Wow, I should really try to apply those decisions in my life!", it's probably going to lead to bad outcomes. However, if you're using it as a way to better understand the susceptibilities of humans, connecting it to your own failures, or struggles of people close to you in your life, and take away a deeper understanding of those struggles and why they happen, it will probably lead to better outcomes in your life.
The assumption here is that there is truth and good, and that there are ways we can impact either moving towards or away from truth through our decisions. The information we find and how we understand it impacts our decisions, and books are one medium for gaining this information. I think that when we tell people to "read books" we are neglecting that the content of the book and whether we place the information properly makes all the difference in whether reading a book will be beneficial to us or not.
How to Read a Book?
Don't read a book to read a book. If you're telling people about the number of books you've read that year, you're missing the point. If you think back to the books you've read and can't remember the points or how it impacted you, you're not gaining value from the book.
Read books to discover truth. You are looking for the underlying truth of the book, and the potential falsities. Simultaneously you are looking for the potential falsities of your own thinking.
Next, stop making reading a purely intellectual pursuit. You're supposed to learn things to make your life better. If it isn't impacting your behavior, you're not really learning. If there's a point made that you think is true, then you need to think about whether you're actually applying it in your life. Think back to specific instances in your life, think about what it is you really want, and then whether you're actually applying what you believe to be true in your real actions every day.
If you learned something important from a book, make it an intentional focus to integrate that understanding into your worldview. Real learning should be like upgrading the prescription for your glasses, the world becomes a little clearer in a real way that's noticeable. You'll go around for the next week going, "Wow, it's so much clearer now!" You'll be glad you finally upgraded and go about your life with that new perspective integrated.
How to integrate new information into your perspective? Intentionally think about how the new information connects and has implications to the things that matter to you. What do you normally think about and how does this new information change your perspective. Learning should have implications.
When To Read Books
Books should help you get to where you're trying to go. You want to have your goals in mind when you're thinking about what to read and how to read. A big reason why I haven't been reading much in the last year is because a lot of what I've been trying to do this year is break away from the overly intellectual mindset that I have tended to rely on and develop more on the subconscious/experiential side of things.
It's easy to get caught up in our own heads and the disembodied way that we like to think and go about life, and books can feed into that making you think that the secret to life is in all the words on a bunch of pages when it isn't. It's about the way in which you go about life, and in order to improve the way you go about life, you first need to be present in it. You're not going to impact others if you're stuck in your own head and good books will take you out of your head, not further into it.
This past year I have been doing a lot more music and trying to live more freely and present and learn how to deal with the uncertainty that comes with it. I think that I've read so many great books, and I'm really glad I did. I feel it's given me a very good foundation upon which I can use to discern how best to move forward in my life, and what makes sense given where I'm at and where I'm going.
I definitely think that going forward in my life there will be many times in which books can and will serve me well, and I'm on the lookout for books that can do this for me. It can also be difficult in a world with so much information to find the good information and sometimes just the process of looking around can be exhausting and overwhelming. This is why it can be helpful to get recommendation from people you respect and try to find sources of consistently valuable information so you don't have to be constantly looking for new stuff.
Book Recommendations
To conclude, here are some books I would recommend:
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Man's Search for Meaning
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Beginning of Infinity
Zero to One
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
Born a Crime
12 Rules for Life
Freakonomics
Off To Be A Wizard
Antifragile
Delivering Happiness
Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts in the comments :)
