Serious Reading
What does it mean to read seriously? Surely, it doesn't mean attempting to intersect your eyebrows (or lack thereof) as much as possible.
When was the last time you’ve read deeply about a single subject for long stretches of time?
I know you’ve been seeing YouTubers post their videos about "reading 1 book a day” or “how to read faster”, but guess what? They’re likely not getting much from what they’ve read—if they're getting anything at all.
And it’s because they’ve only read widely but shallowly, instead of seriously and deeply.
It’s not totally a bad thing, not when it’s done for serendipity. But even that is still debatable.
The trouble is when you’re reading solely for numbers.
It’s like studying for grades instead of actually learning—eventually, the measure becomes the goal and all sorts of suboptimal behavior kicks in, especially cramming.
In the same way, just because great thinkers, CEO’s, or people you deem successful have read hundreds of books doesn’t mean you should read the same amount in a flash.
How many books you read doesn’t matter much—what matters is what book you read and how you process it.
The same goes for videos and other content.
Now, I’d like to share what sparked these ideas to demonstrate that you don’t need to read a whole book nor devour long-winded content to gain insights. Sometimes, essays bring more knowledge than books.
Again, it’s what you read, and how you process them that matters.
My Notes
Bennett says that any good novel — the good parts, at least — involve the least effort to read. For improving how you think, though, he believes it should be hard.
Now in the cultivation of the mind one of the most important factors is precisely the feeling of strain, of difficulty, of a task which one part of you is anxious to achieve and another part of you is anxious to shirk; and that feeling cannot be got in facing a novel. You do not set your teeth in order to read “Anna Karenina.” Therefore, though you should read novels, you should not read them in those ninety minutes.
Thus, he advises anyone to read poetry.
Imaginative poetry produces a far greater mental strain than novels. It produces probably the severest strain of any form of literature. It is the highest form of literature. It yields the highest form of pleasure, and teaches the highest form of wisdom. In a word, there is nothing to compare with it. I say this with sad consciousness of the fact that the majority of people do not read poetry.
If you don’t like it, (I don’t) then he suggests you read Hazlitt’s famous essay “On Poetry in General”. Bennett continues,
It is the best thing of its kind in English, and no one who has read it can possibly be under the misapprehension that poetry is a medieval torture, or a mad elephant, or a gun that will go off by itself and kill at forty paces. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the mental state of the man who, after reading Hazlitt’s essay, is not urgently desirous of reading some poetry before his next meal. If the essay so inspires you I would suggest that you make a commencement with purely narrative poetry.
Another recommendation: “Aurora Leigh” by E.B. Browning.
If you don’t like poetry, though, then Bennett suggests you should read history or philosophy instead:
I see no reason why any man of average intelligence should not, after a year of continuous reading, be fit to assault the supreme masterpieces of history or philosophy. The great convenience of masterpieces is that they are so astonishingly lucid.
Bennett suggests to read deeply in one subject.
Choose a limited period, or a limited subject, or a single author. Say to yourself: “I will know something about the French Revolution, or the rise of railways, or the works of John Keats.” And during a given period, to be settled beforehand, confine yourself to your choice. There is much pleasure to be derived from being a specialist.
And to read and think thoroughly instead of merely increasing the toll of books read.
I know people who read and read, and for all the good it does them they might just as well cut bread-and-butter. They take to reading as better men take to drink. They fly through the shires of literature on a motor-car, their sole object being motion. They will tell you how many books they have read in a year.
Finally, he stresses the importance of thinking about what you read.
Unless you give at least forty-five minutes to careful, fatiguing reflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading, your ninety minutes of a night are chiefly wasted. This means that your pace will be slow.
Source: How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett (1908)