Reading for Ideas

In a podcast, Naval Ravikant (one of the most respected men in Silicon Valley) says that he no longer cares about the number of books he’s read; what he cares about now are ideas he’s understood.

He said:

“Reading books to completion and posting them online is a vanity metric. I’d rather read the best 100 books over and over again until I absorb them rather than reading all the books.”

Naval doesn’t finish reading every book he reads, and he doesn’t require himself to read books from start to finish. Instead, after skimming the table of contents, he jumps right to the specific chapter that caught his attention.

I used to read every book from start to finish for fear of missing something if I didn't. But I realized that reading every book in this way would be unwise and unproductive, especially if I read to hunt for ideas I need at the moment - either to solve a problem, to lift my spirit when I feel down, or follow trails and clues of my own curiosity.

Austin Kleon uploaded this in his blog:

So are chapters.

We can stop reading chapters we don’t like. Isn't it freeing?

Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, once wrote, “If you’re reading a nonfiction book, word-for-word, you're doing it wrong.”