Here’s a question: Do books make you smarter? Will reading Shakespeare or Robert Sapolsky’s latest deep dive into neurobiology improve your intelligence? Or are we just reading to massage our egos and swim in some diversion?
Books have the potential to make you smarter, but your IQ doesn’t ratchet up just because you read one. Access to information isn’t the same as using information—and it’s in the using that real learning happens. We’ve been convinced that the goal is to read hundreds of books a year, leaving little to no time to apply what we’ve learned. Apparently, our job is to “get through” that TBR list as fast as possible. But how can we expect to get anything from our books if we don’t marinate in them for a while?
Okay, that’s not the most pleasant image, but you get the point.
The Problem
First off, incentives matter. These days, we’re more incentivized to buy books with the prettiest covers than to pull up a chair and study them. And while I love these beautiful covers (really, I do), we’ve created a new dilemma: book collecting vs. book reading. Walking into a bookstore is a magical experience—cozy aesthetics, dramatic artwork, and gold-gilded pages that feel too pretty to crack open. And that’s a problem. We need to shift our incentives. Books should be a source of knowledge and enjoyment, not just decoration.
Second, we’re drowning in decision fatigue. There was a time when a good education meant reading a small library of essential books—because that’s all that was available. Now, with the publishing industry in full gear (and seemingly everyone writing a novel, yours truly included), we’re bombarded with choices. The result? We freeze. Have you ever walked into a bookstore, eager to spend your hard-earned money, only to feel so overwhelmed that every book starts blending into a homogeneous pool of paper? I feel this all the time—and inevitably, I buy books I know I’ll never read.
The Solution
Here’s a quick example of how I’m trying to approach reading differently.
I’ve read Macbeth a few times in my life. Each time, I got the gist of the story. Great. But now, I’m in a Shakespeare course at my local college, and we were recently assigned a deep study of Macbeth—specifically, a character study on how Lady Macbeth has been portrayed throughout history.
So, I went all in. After reading the play, I watched multiple film adaptations and three different stage productions on YouTube. I collected and analyzed twenty different literary critiques including articles from The Royal Shakespeare Company productions. Then, I wrote my essay. Almost twenty hours of work later, I sat back, exhausted—and fainted.
Okay, I didn’t faint. But it was a lot.
And you know what I learned? That Macbeth is nothing more than a story—until you put in the work. And when you do, something changes. You change. The structure of your brain shifts. Your ability to think critically improves. The knowledge becomes yours. Macbeth isn’t just about ambition and consequence anymore—it becomes part of your toolkit for making better decisions.
(Don’t worry, folks. I’m not about to start acting like Macbeth or his wife.)
So, Do Books Make You Smarter? Potentially.
Books have the potential to create new connections in your mind.
They have the potential to help you think well and make better decisions.
They have the potential to make you a more interesting person.
They have the potential to make you smarter.
Until next time, read slowly – take notes – apply the ideas.
-Eddy
