How can I Become a Better and More Discerning Reader?
Books, books, books. So many books. Some of you love to read. Some of you HATE to read. Fiction, non-fiction, Christian, non-Christian. Amazon. Barnes & Noble. Christian bookstores. Public Library. Hard copies. Kindle. iBook. Paperback. Hard Copy. Picture Books. Pop-up Books. Adult Coloring Books (yes, this is a thing). Audio Books. So many choices. Over-whelm-ing.
A few weeks ago two men for whom I hold great deal of respect each wrote a blog post on reading and books. One said he is committed to reading hard copies of books and that he was done for the year with ebooks (Kindle, iBooks), while the other said he was even more committed to reading electronic books. Both men are great writers and have huge blog followings.
So who’s right? Is Michael Hyatt’s view on physical books correct? Or is Tim Challies’ view on the ebook the right way to go? The answer, in my opinion, is yes. They’re both right in some ways. Stay tuned to find out why.
Hyatt’s post on the merits of physical copies of books led me to start an email exchange with some friends about reading. From our email exchange came the idea of gathering reading best practices from friends who I know love to read and would have some great wisdom to share on reading. Today marks the beginning of (at least) a five-part series over the next few weeks on reading and books.
For years my goal was to read a set number of books every year. The goal of books read grew each year from 50 books to 60 books to 75 books a few years ago. The problem for me was that the number of books was the goal. For some unknown reason I took pride in the number of books I read in a year. In the process, however, I recklessly consumed a lot of books without learning or applying anything along the way. For this reason, my goal has now become to read less, understand more, apply more and share more. I am much more concerned about how to read BETTER, not necessarily to read MORE.
This series will be split up into a few posts, with the goal of helping you to become a better and more discerning reader, to help you choose to read better books and to help you apply, share and enjoy more of what you’re reading.
Part 2: The merits of hard copy v. ebooks. In this post, I will interact with the posts from Hyatt and Challies and help you think through your preferred reading format. I’ll also point you to one of my favorite ways of ‘reading.'
Part 3: How to read BETTER. This post will include many of the best practices I learned from my friends. This might actually turn into two or three different posts.
Part 4: How to choose what to read next. There are so many good choices of books! (And, at the same time, so many bad ones). How do you decide what book(s) to read next?
Part 5: In this post I share the books that have had the greatest impact on my life.
Your Turn:
How do you decide what you will read next?
What are some of your reading best practices? Please comment below or on Facebook.
Read the posts from Hyatt and Challies. Both of these posts will be a great help for you as you process why, what, and how to read.