How To Read Fewer Books

To be considered ‘well-read’, one is expected to get through an endless number of books. Instead, like the Ancients, we should focus on the quality not the quantity of one’s reading.

Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: t.ly/Zy4CW

Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: t.ly/HjE4D

FURTHER READING

You can read more on this and other subjects here: bit.ly/35fcAUV

“The modern world firmly equates the intelligent person with the well-read person. Reading books, a lot of books, is the hallmark of brilliance as well as the supreme gateway to prestige and understanding. It’s hard to imagine anyone arriving at any insights of value without having worked their way through an enormous number of titles over the years. There is apparently no limit to how much we should read. We might – logically and ideally – be reading all the time and get ever cleverer with every moment we do so. The number of books we have managed to read by the day we die will tell us pretty much all we need to know about the complexity and maturity of our minds.
This so-called maximalist philosophy of reading enjoys enormous cultural prestige. It is backed up by enormous publishing and journalistic industries that constantly parade new titles before us – and imply that we might be swiftly left behind and condemned to a narrow and provincial mindset if we did not rush to read four of this year’s major prize winning books as well as seven fascinating titles that have received ardent reviews in the Sunday supplements since March. As a result, our shelves are overburdened and our guilt at how far behind we are intense…”

MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Watch more films on SELF in our playlist:
bit.ly/TSOLself

SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to follow us at the links below:

Facebook: facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/

X: twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife

Instagram: instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/

CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Deanca Rensyta Mihardja
behance.net/deancarensa5a9

Title animation produced in collaboration with

Vale Productions
valeproductions.co.uk/