<\/canvas> <\/div><\/div><\/figure>We\u2019ve reached a moment where it might be more useful and convenient to spend one\u2019s non-fiction reading time \u201cFractal Reading\u201d rather than reading one whole book cover to cover. For example, I\u2019d estimate I spend 50% of my deliberate learning time focused on Fractal Reading rather than deep, sequential reading. This helps me more effectively select which books to go deep on and understand the most important and relevant sections of a book so I can jump right to them. In most cases, doing Fractal Reading on 5 books is more valuable and engaging to me than consuming one book cover-to-cover.<\/p>
Here\u2019s how to do it:<\/p>
Read 2\u20133 book summaries (Google search).\u00a0<\/strong>For almost any book, you\u2019ll find several book summaries, which often contain the best information in the book (the 20 percent of ideas that create 80 percent of value). And to clarify, I\u2019m only talking about nonfiction books here. This, of course, would not be relevant to fiction.<\/li>Listen to an author interview (podcast, Google).\u00a0<\/strong>Interviews are engaging, and the interviewer does the work for you, asking the author the most pertinent and compelling questions they\u2019ve gleaned from reading the book.<\/li>Watch an author presentation (TED, Google, or university talk).\u00a0<\/strong>When an author is forced to whittle down a 200-page book into a 20-minute talk, they share their biggest idea and best story.<\/li>Read the most helpful 1-star, 2-star, 3-star, 4-star, and 5-star reviews (Amazon).<\/strong>\u00a0Amazon helps us all quickly sort the most well thought-out reviews from readers who loved the book down to those who hated it.<\/li>Read the first and last chapters of the book.<\/strong>\u00a0The first and last chapters of a book often contain the most valuable content in it (this obviously doesn\u2019t work if you\u2019re hoping to get lost in a novel). In addition, the first and last paragraphs of each chapter contain the big ideas of each chapter. With\u00a0Google Books<\/a>, ebook free samples, and Amazon\u2019s Look Inside feature, it\u2019s often possible to get the first and last chapter of a book for free.<\/li><\/ul>Smart reading hack 3: View your unread books as a reminder of how little you\u00a0know<\/h4> Intellectual humility isn\u2019t valuable just because it\u2019s a virtue. It\u2019s valuable because it gives us a more realistic conception of ourselves and our place in the world, which helps us conduct our lives more effectively and harmoniously. For example, humility helps us\u00a0make better decisions and inspires us to learn more<\/a>.<\/p>Here\u2019s how I think of it: there are billions of people who have been creating and documenting their knowledge for thousands of years. What we know compared to what humanity has collectively discovered is but a drop in the ocean. And that ocean is growing at a speed we can\u2019t even fathom.\u00a0Most of the scientists who have ever lived are alive today<\/a>!<\/p>To take things even further, when it comes to all of the knowledge that humanity could discover and what we\u2019ve already discovered as a species, the difference is more like a grain of sand in the universe. So there are three levels of humility we should have:<\/p>
Personal Knowledge<\/li> Humanity\u2019s Current Knowledge<\/li> All Potential Knowledge<\/li><\/ol>Yet, when it comes to day-to-day lived experience, it feels like we know way more than we actually do. On our good days, many of us feel like we have this \u2018life thing\u2019 figured out. Like we are at the end of a cycle rather than the beginning. This is because we are constantly reminded of what we know and rarely reminded (if ever) of how little we know.<\/p>
Sure, we may know conceptually that we don\u2019t know everything, but we don\u2019t physically see it. I was recently reminded of this when I spent two hours touring through two of Princeton University\u2019s six libraries. I must have walked through 10 football fields of books and academic journals. On the one hand, it was inspiring to see everything I could learn. On the other hand, it was extremely humbling. It helped me see how little I currently know, and it helped me see that even if I spent my whole life just reading, I would still only know a fraction of knowledge out there.<\/p>
Creating an\u00a0anti-library<\/strong>\u00a0by surrounding ourselves with unread books in your home can evoke a similar feeling. Bestselling author and successful investor Nassim Taleb describes the value of an anti-library brilliantly in his book,\u00a0The Black Swan<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>A private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You\u2019ll accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.<\/p><\/blockquote>
Taleb isn\u2019t alone in his sentiment. Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco collected more than 30,000 books. Thomas Jefferson collected more than 6,000 books, making his library the largest in the country at the time. The founder of Priceline.com Jay Walker has such a big collection of books that he\u00a0built his home around it<\/a>. Thomas Edison put his work desk in the center of his personal three-story library. Out of all of the rooms in Bill Gates\u2019 house, his favorite is his enormous 2,100 square foot library.<\/p>