Share your experiences with reading books

[Asayake]

As the title indicates, I'm curious about your experiences with reading books as I'm conflicted about whether the books I've read have paid off or not, I haven't read many books and considering whether I should. A few questions come to mind where I think it would be insightful to see others experiences on here, namely:

Have/do you read many books, about what frequency per year?

Have you noticed positive effects from reading, if so which, in which domains of your life?

Do you find reading books to be a worthwhile endeavour, do you think reading more than you currently do would improve your life?

Have you had letdowns or periods where you felt reading wasn't contributing much to your life, potentially leading to breaks from reading or a disillusionment with the value of books?

 

 

[integration journey]

Reading Leo’s booklist has been an amazing investment. The books synergize each other and they are life changing.

 

[Asayake]

5 minutes ago, integration journey said:

Reading Leo’s booklist has been an amazing investment. The books synergize each other and they are life changing.

 

It's interesting you say they synergize each other, do you mind explaining what you mean by that? I have the booklist and have read a few of the books on there but haven't dug deep into it yet, might give it another shot if more people vouch for seeing improvements from the books on that list.

[integration journey]

15 minutes ago, Asayake said:

It's interesting you say they synergize each other, do you mind explaining what you mean by that? I have the booklist and have read a few of the books on there but haven't dug deep into it yet, might give it another shot if more people vouch for seeing improvements from the books on that list.

The booklist is divided into sections like a personal development section, spirituality section, money section, life purpose section, emotional mastery section  

what I did is I got a bunch of books from one section and started reading and comparing. When I read the books under the life purpose section, my ideas of what a life purpose got enriched.
When I read some of the books under the emotional mastery section, my understanding of emotions was expanded a lot. I started looking at emotions differently because I’m reading different authors and perspectives. 
but you have to take actions on the books as well. Reading alone is not enough. Do the actionable steps in the book  and contemplate what is being written. 

I found one of my favorite authors through Leo’s book list which is Vernon Howard. His style of writing is amazing to me. 
 

[Basman]

I find the act of reading to be a chore a lot of the time but I make myself read books as it is a prime predictors of success. There's a lot of information there you just don't get from watching videos or listening to podcasts, both in terms of depth and your mind grasping the ideas.

Most info I've read I soon forget again but I'm usually left with a couple of actionable concepts. Those are the ones that end up shaping my behavior and changing my world view. Contemplation is key for retaining info in my experience. I like to also write down the essence of the concepts in my commonplace book so I can review them at any time. Reading a book multiple times also helps with retention and depth of understanding.

On 29/10/2024 at 1:28 AM, Asayake said:

Have/do you read many books, about what frequency per year?

2-3 a year maybe. It varies a bit. I tend to put off reading for long periods of time to then feel guilty about not reading.

On 29/10/2024 at 1:28 AM, Asayake said:

Have you noticed positive effects from reading, if so which, in which domains of your life?

It is usually only a couple of concepts that end up shaping my life. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari has been pretty instrumental in my understanding and contemplation of human nature (worldview). Models by Mark Manson has helped shape how I understand dating from a logistical perspective and also changed how I dress for the better. Ikigai by Hector Garcia and Grancesc Miralles taught my to only eat 80% and that fullness tends to be a delayed sensation.

A little bit of this, little bit of that.

On 29/10/2024 at 1:28 AM, Asayake said:

Do you find reading books to be a worthwhile endeavour, do you think reading more than you currently do would improve your life?

Yes but you need to read the stuff you think is worthwhile to learn. I rarely read for fun, I read because I think it'll make my life better. Its quality over quantity because you have to work with the material beyond just reading it for it to really penetrate your mind.

On 29/10/2024 at 1:28 AM, Asayake said:

Have you had letdowns or periods where you felt reading wasn't contributing much to your life, potentially leading to breaks from reading or a disillusionment with the value of books.

Boring and poorly written books (*cough Jordan Peterson) do that for me more than anything else. Its about retention and integration of key concepts at the end of day. Its not just finding nuggets of gold but processing it. Reading is merely an avenue for that (sifting). Typically I only remember one or two concepts, so the question is if reading an entire book for those two nuggets was worth it? It depends on how valuable you think does concepts are, but then again you could reread the book and retain even more information.

You have to pick the best books relative to what you want to learn.

[Schizophonia]

There are very few books that success to interest me.

The only author i read recently was Ken Wilber because it's quite dense, i tried to read Nietzsche but it's a lot of pompous ramblings to try to demonstrate what are only a handful of ideas and it bores me.

I would like to read books on business, i want to start my own personal assistance business (maintenance work) just lie my father eheh; I recently started Mastery but i found that it had no interest, pseudo-holistic books of the genre have virtually no interest, I need more specific advice, or simply no advice.

Edited November 1 by Schizophonia

[hyruga]

Use goodreads.com so that you can observe your reading journey. You will always find many other interesting books along the way amongst other good benefits.

[Ayham]

my reading process:
as i read, i casually underline and write ideas on the margins of the book

I have a note for each book in my Zettelkasten in obsidian.md 
I rephrase the underlined stuff in my own words in the note for the book

Then I make atomic notes, which are basically mini essays on each idea in the book

Leo's booklist is great, but I prefer Daniel Burger list https://civilizationemerging.com/resources/books/

[UnbornTao]

6 hours ago, Ayham said:

Leo's booklist is great, but I prefer Daniel Burger list https://civilizationemerging.com/resources/books/

I'm hungry too.