Reading is one of my favorites pastimes. I enjoy mostly non-fiction at this point in my life, and tend to hit on a cycle of topics: Spirituality, Theology, Finance, Economic Development, Business, History, Sociology / Psychology, Culture, Productivity, Leadership, Management.
I work within these categories, and love the connections between the content and various perspectives that different authors bring to the table. Insights into how people and organizations think, considering how to be more productive with my time, how to help others move toward the goals they set are all part of the enjoyment I get from reading.
There are always new books, new ideas, new perspectives and new concepts. There are new packages of old ideas, and classics newly discovered, and cutting edge science. The problem is that there is so much new stuff to read, that you don’t have time to set your roots down into truly valuable works of literature.
Consider this quote from C.H. Spurgeon (wiki – a fascinating larger-than-life preacher / writer / social development force in London in the 1860s) who was at one point arguably the most widely read and published author in the world in his time. Quoting from J. Oswald Sanders classic Spiritual Leadership, Spurgeon says:
“Master those books you have.
Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you.
Read and reread them, masticate and digest them.
Let them go into your very self.
Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it.
A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed.
Little learning and much pride comes of hasty reading.
Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading.
In reading let your motto be “much, not many.”
(Interesting aside – the “much, not many” is a Latin phrase “Multum Non Multa” – a core tenant in Classical Education. It refers to knowing “much” about a few topics, rather than little bits about “many” topics.)
This stands as an antithesis of how we consume information in the modern era. Skimming books, skipping from article to article, the mass of information means that we focus on finding and accessing small pieces of information rather than soaking in a rich “bath” of knowledge.
The embarrassing thing to admit is that there aren’t many books that I’ve read that I would recommend someone let “go into your very self.” And I’m not sure that I’ve thoroughly mastered many books. Maybe it’s time to reconsider my reading habit and pick one book that I like enough to master.
If you have a book that you’d put on your list of books worth mastering, I’d love to hear your thoughts. My email is on the About page, drop me a line.