Last night, my son lost the ketchup which taught me a valuable lesson in reading. In his mind, we were out of the red stuff. A few days ago, he made hotdogs and used the last of it. By throwing the bottle away, he created a reality in his head that we were all out.Continue reading The Ketchup Bottle Effect: How Our Biases Shape the Way We Read
I’m not a virtuoso reader, but I hope to be one day. I was reading Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi this morning, and on page 25, he explains how virtuosos are made. He says: “Like all virtuosi, he must spend many years learning, and he must keep constantly in training. Being a specialist, he cannot affordContinue reading Become a Virtuoso Reader
I usually write these posts first thing in the morning. They’re my little way of getting my head on straight before the crazy attacks. And let’s be honest, the crazy attacks a lot. But I didn’t have time today, mostly because I was so excited, I could hardly think straight. I had a meeting todayContinue reading Reading After a Long Day
I have a short but necessary message for readers today: Every book has a speed limit. Some books can be read at 70 MPH while others start to rumble and shake if you go faster than 10 MPH. To read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is very different than to read Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River. So, whenContinue reading This Book Has a Speed Limit
The Bible almost got it right. Ecclesiastes 3:4-5 should have read, “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to listen to audiobooks and a time to read paper books…” Audiobooks are a more passive form of learning; they lend themselves well toContinue reading Are AudioBooks Better Than Paper Books?
A friend recently told me, “I struggle to finish books.” I hear this a lot, so let’s talk about it. We want to be better readers, and so we go to bookstores and fill our shelves with shiny new releases. We jump into reading challenges with the best of intentions, join book clubs, and setContinue reading I Struggle to Finish Books
Whether you like the idea of meditation or not, it has something to teach you about reading books. Consider this: meditation is the practice of taming your mind. It’s not about sitting in silence with an empty brain, it’s about recognizing distraction and then training your brain to come back to a point of focusContinue reading Return to Your Book 100 Times
It’s possible to read a book without getting distracted. No matter your background, educational level, or outlook on life – you do have the ability to focus for more than 8 seconds. If you haven’t read a book in a while, doing so will feel like a chore. That’s normal. Even now, reading this post,Continue reading The Untrained Reading Brain
I talk about reading slowly, but why does it matter? You can watch YouTube summaries, purchase cliff notes, and conspire with ChatGPT to say that you’ve “read the novel.” In high school, we were assigned Hemingway’s beautiful book, The Old Man and the Sea. Most of the students cheated and rented the movie. I’m workingContinue reading It’s Not Enough to Possess a Good Mind
I feel guilty when I read. My “dad-sense” kicks in, whispering that I should spend more time with my kids. Part of me thinks that one day, when everyone grows up, the guilty feelings will vanish and I’ll be able to sit in my reading chair without remorse. But I know that’s not true. MyContinue reading The UnSelfish Act of Reading