The Reader’s Mind: Six Ways Reading 3000 Books Over 10 Years Has Changed Me
I am coming to the end of what has been an inadvertent personal/social experiment on the impact of reading widely and in volume. After 10 years and 3000 books, I am only now trying to understand the impact this choice has had on me. In 2014 I started intentionally counting and cataloging every book I read, that year setting a goal for myself of 100 books. Increasing every year* (the biggest jump being in 2015 when I started including audiobooks) this kind of input has become a big part of my daily life, and almost certainly shaped the person I have become. Having just passed the 3000-book milestone, I find myself reflecting; not so much on the reading regime itself (as some kind of accomplishment) but on the impact the experience has had on my heart, mind, and soul.
Further, and of equal interest, is the impact it has not made. I do not think, for instance, I am really any smarter. Nor do I feel, or in everyday interactions seem, “well read.” But I am practically, spiritually, and emotionally changed by the integration of so many voices into my thought life. Perhaps most significantly, I feel changed by the simple act of careful listening. Simone Weil said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”[1] And Jesus said, “It is better to give than to receive,”[2] and so it is that I am the one most changed and benefited by this long and persevering attentiveness. This, then, is a reflection on the impact this experience, over all these years, has had on me. And by extension what a commitment to reading more and more widely might have on all of us.
So, from my own experience, I offer these 6 qualities that have been nurtured, reinforced, and to some degree caused by the discipline and joy of reading.
1. I am more curious.
Curiosity is a virtuous circle. To wonder about the people and things around you, and then to go looking for the reasons, history, motivation, and stories behind them, is to find yourself even more engaged than when you started. Curiosity never really relieves itself; it only asks for more. There is this beautiful symmetry in the two meanings of the word “wonder.” We can and should use it to mean both that inner prompting to know something and the feeling one gets (and is often overcome by) when you discover something extraordinary.
To wonder is to know wonder.
I do not remember being all that curious as a person before this reading journey began. Surely, I was about certain things. I could, like anyone, go down rabbit holes of my interest. But what reading at this pace has done, in part, is give me an insatiable curiosity about everything. There is almost no topic I am not a little interested in. I have found my way to topics both esoteric and sweeping. I find wonder as much in metaphysics as I do in a memoir. And I am sure this is due to simply listening to so many different people (in the form of their books) explain something so important to them. Every book can be read with a kind of urgency as you find yourself transported to the life, struggles, and discoveries of the writer.
Every book has something to give, if only from the author’s point of view. Collecting points of view is a reward in itself. This realization has made a world of difference in my relationships, especially with strangers. I am still pretty goal-oriented, even in my one-on-one meetings with people, but I find myself more and more fascinated by people themselves and not just what we have to accomplish together.
I can now go long periods listening to someone, probing with genuine curiosity, not for some reason but just because people are fascinating. Every person (and every person’s story) is infinitely interesting if you have the disposition to care. Acclaimed film producer Brian Grazer’s wonderful book, A Curious Mind is a winsome depiction of the best kind of creative life, driven by curiosity. Grazer’s lifelong practice of interviewing extraordinary people (with no purpose other than to listen, learn, and be enriched by it) was a revelation. In it, he makes this claim, which the consistent reader might well confirm, “More than intelligence or persistence or connections, curiosity has allowed me to live the life I wanted.”[3]
2. I have deeper and more frequent insights.
When someone is an expert in something, whether art or architecture, law or literature; we refer to their perceptions as a “trained eye.” Even though they both look at the same piece of art or legal document, the untrained eye cannot see what the trained eye can. Presumably, this comes from not just repetition but from knowledge of exactly what to look for. The more we read, the more we are stopped in our tracks by a good idea. Usually, this happens because it means something to us. We connect the dots of the story or mental model to something in the life we are living. But becoming aware, even cataloging that moment of learning is to train the eye for insight.
People ask me how I can remember so much content. And of course, the answer is, I can’t. I don’t remember any more of the content of a good book than you probably do. But I do tend to remember the best ideas from each book, and I do work to integrate the best ideas from the best books into my thought life and practice. I am a treasure hunter, always looking for killer ideas, metaphors that open up the world I perceive, and points of view that challenge my own.
I am deeper because of it. Again, there is a virtuous circle here. Looking for insight makes you good at looking for insight. And the rewards are immense. My leadership is incalculably improved by a vast catalog of anecdotes, studies, metaphors, and life stories that come to mind in almost every situation. I can guess the people closest to me get a little annoyed by my constant reference to this book or that. Still, I find myself quietly equipped for situations I have never been in, by the experience and discoveries of others.
Because my rate of consumption is so high, I can also take on big topics, not because I think I can become an expert but simply to try to understand something better, and from more than one point of view. And this kind of commitment impacts your ability to see patterns and themes, in, around, and adjacent to that topic.
Reading a half dozen books on a topic for instance delivers not just pithy or personal insight, but category-wide discoveries. Reading more than one book on a subject can reveal both what is commonly understood and what is not. This is an invaluable insight. Reading one book on say, diet will lead you to certain conclusions (endemic to that author’s point of view or product) while reading a dozen books on diet will give you a whole new set of insights on what is common and what is contested knowledge. For that reason, I sometimes think reading just one book on a subject might be worse than reading none.
3. I have an appetite for long-form arguments.
I read a book recently called You’ve Got 8 Seconds: Communication Secrets for a Distracted World. The claim? That is now the attention span we have to work within, marketing our ideas and making an argument for something. There is little doubt that we are all diminished by the deluge of short-form arguments competing for our attention and allegiance. Social media posts, clickable articles, and sound bites may be emotionally compelling, but they are spurious starting points for an informed point of view.
Part of what is dying in an information age bottlenecked by 140 characters is the appreciation for the long-form argument. We are slowly losing even our respect for how true ideas are forged. They should be supported by previous research and wider thinking. They should stand up to the scrutiny of other considerations, they should be able to be born out throughout sustained discourse.
Of course, books are not by their nature intrinsically good scholarship or even trustworthy. But good scholarship and trustworthy ideas do need the medium of the long-form argument to be validated. In other words, all books are not true, but all true things deserve to be explored in books. I am just more and more convinced that to hear someone out and take on board their idea, we need to take more time. I am a Christian. For that reason, I hold what would be considered conservative views about things like sexuality, gender, and marriage. But also because of my Christian faith, I carry a deep commitment to humility. To believe that I can always be (and often am) wrong.
Further, I have no fear of ideas or arguments that are different from my own. For that reason, I have read dozens of books by writers who hold very different positions than my own on human sexuality. For me, it is an attempt to carefully hear them. To understand their point of view, I know I have to hear the whole thing out, to listen to the end. And to do that again and again. After all, the Bible, which I so revere, makes this command, “Be slow to speak and quick to listen.”[4] And I think reading with an open heart and mind is a way of listening to people. To care about their whole story and to take them seriously means listening to their full argument. Even though I have read hundreds of books that have made an argument for humanism I am unconvinced. But it is not because I have not taken their arguments seriously, I believe I have. This, I would hope, creates a different kind of debate. A disagreement based on respect and serious consideration of another point of view. In the end, my positions are mitigated as I learn and understand. But my core convictions are reinforced and deepened (more about that later).
4. I see the value of a contrary theory.
This leads me to the contrary theory. Having raised six children, five of whom are adults now, I would have thought I’d have more to say about parenting. It may be one of those “the more you learn the less you know” situations. Still, one thing I can say about the long art of parenting is that our goal should not be to teach our kids how to behave but to teach them how to think.
Our house is generally filled with confident people, and we all have strong opinions. But as we have come to learn, the real challenge to healthy thinking is not how well you can construct and articulate your argument, but how well you can understand and advocate for an opposing argument. As my kids have grown in intelligence and confidence this discipline became more and more important in our home. I tried to ask my kids to demonstrate an understanding of the contrary theory, before they tried to persuade the rest of us they were right about something.
This discipline ends up strengthening our positions precisely because it first weakens them. Really taking in a contrary theory will help you see the parts of your own position that are nuanced, unfair, or even untenable. A healthy respect for contrary theory (which is only possible if you have genuinely listened to understand it) bends our minds toward truth. Because things are rarely (if ever) understood through just one point of view.
Some time ago, I stumbled on the term monocausotaxophilia.[5] A wonderfully compact summation of this malady that afflicts the opinionated, the term describes the way we are drawn to descriptions of complex problems that have a single cause. What is wrong with education, politics, religion, and kids today is… (insert single cause). I am convinced this mostly comes down to intellectual laziness and convenience. It’s just harder and takes lots more work to dance with complexity. Paradox rarely helps us make a monocausal case. All to say, the more I read contrary theories the less I seem to suffer from this kind of taxophilia. So transformative is reading in this regard (at least for me) that I have become more interested in reading people who do not hold my own view. In part because I want to understand the complexity of the issue and in part because I want to understand the people on the other side. It is for both truth and compassion we ought to take seriously the idea of the contrary theory. And as I have said, the wonderful irony here is that by taking seriously other people’s ideas, I better see the seriousness of my own.
5. I experience a more civil inner discourse.
In an era characterized by binary choices and fractious communication, built on lazy thinking, misinformation, and partisan pressures, the real damage may not only be to our relationships but to our internal equilibrium.
I recently finished the memoir of the actress Minka Kelly. It was simple, beautiful, and honest. In it she tells a story about the deep regret she had for taking the advice of her therapist to confront her dying mother (presumably before it was too late) about her neglect and failures as a mother (and there were many). What is remarkable about this passage is just how rare this sort of tale is. Reflecting not just on how wrong the advice of the therapist ends up being for her, but the tension she felt in doing it at all. The therapist was insistent that her mother did not truly love her, even though Minka always believed she did. All those years she was somehow able to see the neglect as something other than lovelessness, saw her mother’s vulnerabilities, and offered mercy instead of judgment. But on this strong advice, she took her lists of grievances to her mother, never feeling comfortable or at peace with it, but feeling too, this person is a professional, they must know what they are doing. She would immediately rue the decision,
“…my words were sledgehammers, dismantling every shred of dignity she had left. She was already carrying so much guilt. She already knew the very specific ways she’d wronged me and every mistake she’d made. And there I was, calling them all out for her in big red letters. It was such a bad idea. Just remembering this conversation still brings me so much pain.”[6]
This kind of inner tension, created in part by the expectations of others to feel what they say we ought to feel is endemic to the time in which we live. We love that family member but feel we shouldn’t because of how they voted. We appreciate the contribution of our coworkers but feel we should alienate them because of a conflict they are having with a close friend. We admire some works of art, but because it was made by someone with a dubious past, we feel pressure to dislike it as much as we are supposed to dislike it (or at least to say so publicly). We are deeply grateful for the impact of a spiritual leader on our lives, but now that leader is exposed and disgraced by their own misconduct and so we feel guilty for that persistent gratitude. It all contributes to a world of inner turmoil, compounded by our own natural and ongoing struggles with pride, insecurity, guilt, and shame.
One of the strange and wonderful gifts of reading and listening to so many, well-formed points of view is a quieting of that inner chaos. Again, perhaps ironically, the integration of many points of view seems to validate our own. So much of that inner chaos comes from the presentation of false dichotomies. If everything in our heads is binary, how can we feel sane when we agree and disagree a bit with both options? The answer is not just a third way, but a fourth and fifth, and so on. The reader’s mind opens up to give lots of room not just for other people but for us. It gives us options and alternatives to feeling painted in a corner. It does not just promote civil discourse with each other but also inside our heads.
6. I have fewer but deeper convictions.
As I have said, I am a Christian. Whatever that might mean to you, for me it means that Jesus is everything to me. Still, most of what I read is not written by Christians. Probably less than 20% of the 3000 books have been Christian. Of course, this has an impact on my faith. But far from being a threat, I feel buttressed by it.
For those of us who are Christian, so much of what we call faith in Jesus is just social or cultural baggage. Not necessarily bad or good, but certainly not derived from Scripture or the revelation of God to us in Jesus. So, is reading widely a threat to that stuff? You bet. I think of this line from 1 Corinthians.
“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.”[7]
This is just how I feel, all these books later. Some of my thinking has been burned away. But what remains is precious. It is precious precisely because it has stood the testing of other good and bad ideas. Despite reading (and taking seriously) hundreds of books that would deny Jesus as I see him, as he described himself as “the way, the truth and the life”[8] I am not convinced by them. Not because I am stubborn but because the evidence in favor of Jesus as who he claimed to be shines in the face of these counterarguments. He is so often misunderstood or misrepresented. And in the end, those who have dismissed him might themselves be served by a contrary theory, a closer look, and the testimony of the millions who have found him to be exactly who he said he was.
I only say that here to illustrate, that reading outside your worldview is not a threat to the truth itself. It is a balm. We should not be afraid of true things. We should be looking for them wherever they present themselves, exactly so that in the end, the true things we already believe will be confirmed by that care and rigor.
The whole process may leave you with fewer convictions, but they will be deeper and more profoundly held. So, if you have made it to the end of this article, I would encourage you to keep going. Keep reading. The world will be made better for it.
Endnotes:
[1] Weil, Simone. Gravity and grace. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.
[2] Acts 20:35
[3] Grazer, Brian., Fishman, Charles. A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. United Kingdom: Simon & Schuster, 2016. P.X1V
[4] James 1:19
[5] Turner, Frederick., Epic: Form, Content, and History, 2012. page 152
[6] Kelly, Minka. Tell Me Everything: A Memoir. United States: Henry Holt and Company, 2023.
[7] 1 Corinthians 3:11–14
[8] John 14:6
