Arthur Schopenhauer on the Dangers of Clickbait
German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) influenced some of the more prominent minds in the world. His writings and lessons traverse time and discipline. Schopenhauer confronted …
Reading
Why Read? Advice From Harold Bloom
The late Harold Bloom, literary critic and professor, may well have been one of the most prolific readers of all time. Given that, Bloom was uniquely well positioned to answer the question of why we …
Why You Shouldn’t Slog Through Books
While our system for reading 25 pages a day has been adopted by many of our readers and members to great success, a couple points have been misinterpreted. Let’s clear them up. Reading opens …
General James Mattis: Arm Yourself With Books
How many situations will you face that have not already been experienced by someone else? Billions of people, thousands of years … probably not too many. It’s been done. Luckily, sometimes those …
The Self-Education of Louis L’Amour
The author Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) was among America’s most prolific and most beloved. He wrote 105 books, most of which were fiction, and at his death in 1988 they were all still in print. Most …
A Short List of Books for Doing New Things
Andrew Ng has quite the modern resume. He founded Coursera, a wonderful website that gives anyone with Internet access the ability to take high level university courses on almost any topic. He founded …
Peter Bevelin on Seeking Wisdom, Mental Models, Learning, and a Lot More
One of the most impactful books we’ve ever come across is the wonderful Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger, written by the Swedish investor Peter Bevelin. In the spirit of multidisciplinary …
George Washington’s Practical Self-Education
Our first President and Commander-in-Chief, George Washington, is not known as an intellectual, the way Ben Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and some of his other Revolutionary counterparts …
Mortimer Adler on Understanding What You Read
One of our goals when reading is to find and elucidate the key sentences in a book. Independent of whether we agree with these key sentences, we first need to digest them — to capture the …
What Can We Learn From the Prolific Mr. Asimov?
To learn is to broaden, to experience more, to snatch new aspects of life for yourself. To refuse to learn or to be relieved at not having to learn is to commit a form of suicide; in the long run, a …
Letters to a Prime Minister
Every two weeks, from 2007 to 2011, Yann Martel sent a book to then Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. Each book was accompanied by a letter telling the PM why he might enjoy that particular …
3 Famous Writers on the Relationship Between Reading and Writing
During the Q&A for How to Read a Book, someone asked whether reading a lot makes us better writers. The short answer is yes. Reading and writing are two sides of the same coin. As Anne …
Montaigne’s Rule for Reading: The Promiscuous Pursuit of Pleasure
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) might have been the original essayist. George Orwell before George Orwell. Montaigne was well-read, smart, critical, and possesed a tendency to write in a personal …
The Best Way to Get Smarter? Learn to Read the Right Way.
There is a Buffett & Munger interview from 2013 that we reflect on frequently. They discuss how they’ve leaped ahead of their peers and competitors time and time again: Munger: We’ve learned how …
Nick Hornby Reminds us Why We Love Books (Sometimes)
“All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal…With each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more …
Just Twenty-Five Pages a Day
I love bookshelves. I love the physical act of having the books on the shelves to be looked at, admired, and remembered. When I was younger, I really enjoyed the library, and I still do. But I learned …