How to Choose What To Read

Choose Well — It Is More Important Than You Might Think

11 min readOct 28, 2023

Let me ask you something. How many books do you read every year? Yes, I know. It is strange perhaps for me to ask a question on quantity at the beginning of the article that seems to focus on the quality of reading. But bear with me.

Of course, there are books of 200 pages, and then books like Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov or Tolstoy’s War and Peace with over a thousand pages each. And yes, we all read at different speeds. Yes, some books are complex and more difficult to plow through, and there are those you can finish in one sitting. Let’s put all that aside for now. Focus on the number.

So how many?

Let’s (somewhat arbitrarily) group your responses into 3 categories:

Occasional reader — Less than 6, maximum of a book every two months;
Casual reader — Around 12, which is one book a month;
Serious Reader — 24 or more, so a minimum of two a month;

I’ll say this though, I think 24 is a very low bar for a serious reader. It is perhaps a sign of our times— since people are reading so much less than before. But if you read ONLY 25 pages a day, you will hit 750 pages in a month. That is easily 2 average-sized books. So 24 should be a minimum.

Which category do you belong to?

Now let’s do a bit of math. Let’s say you are a casual reader who is 30 years old. Let’s take the average life expectancy as 70 — in the 40 years you have ahead of you, you are looking at potentially reading 480 books. At first, 480 may sound impressive. Just close your eyes and think “I have read 480 books”. Not bad? I think pretty bad. Even a serious reader who might hit double that — 960 books in the same 40 years is only scratching the surface of the incredible literary legacy of humanity, not to mention thousands of amazing non-fiction books.

1,000 books in 40 years.

Now guess how many books are out there.

An estimated 150 million books. UNESCO estimates that there are 2,2 million new books published every year.

Now. More math. Even if you disqualify 149 million of all the books, if you read 1,000 books over the rest of your life, it is only 0.1% of 1 million.

WE HAVE ONLY SO MUCH TIME. WE WILL READ ONLY SO MANY BOOKS. This is precisely why choosing what to read is important.

“If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

Sure, at the end of the day, reading is not about numbers. It is about what you get from the books, the joy, the lessons, and what that does for your life. Whether you read for entertainment or information and learning, reading is the single most important activity you can engage in if you aim to grow as an individual and as a professional.

Yes, you can argue that someone who reads 2 books a year and learns from them may grow more than someone who reads 50. I agree. But that is usually an exception. Give it a few years and a gap between someone who reads 2 books a year and someone else who reads 20 will, on average, be huge. In terms of achievements, quality of life, your ability to articulate your thoughts, communication, creativity, focus, and intellectual depth.

Now let’s talk about how to choose what to read.

Create and Maintain a Reading List

First of all, start by putting together a reading list. Books you are interested in, books you have on your shelf and mean to read, but have been procrastinating for a while. Think of topics you are most interested in.

I suggest limiting your list to what you are going to read in up to a year. It keeps the list manageable. One year is a good timeframe. Not too short, and not too long. If you plan for 24 books, for example, you know you need to maintain the pace of 2 books a month.

At the beginning of every year, I make a list of books I would like to read. Usually, I put around 20 books on the list. I know that during the year, I will identify a few other good books I will want to read. So I like to leave space for that. The list should be a living document. Changing and adapting to your needs and likes.

One thing that a reading list does is it forces you to prioritize. What you are saying is you plan to read 24 books. But you are also saying — everything other than these 24 books on my list I will NOT read for at least a year.

If you find that there are more than 24 books and you are not sure how to prioritize them, just ask yourself this — what would you choose to read if you only had a year or two left to live? Perhaps a bit radical, I know, but try it — it makes decision-making incredibly quick.

When choosing fiction, I believe tried and tested is best. Time is the best criterion for fiction. When choosing non-fiction, focus on what you can learn from — time is sometimes not the best criterion for non-fiction.

Here are a few ways to get good book recommendations:

Explore your topics of interest

Think about what you want to prioritize. Fiction? A specific genre? Or an author? Non-fiction? Specific topics? Do you want to read about the Israel-Palestine conflict, sci-fi, astrophysics, personal finance management, or a particular country? Whatever it is, reading good books on the subject will be more enriching than the news, you’ll see.

Pick up 2–3, maybe up to 5 good books on the subject. That is usually enough to develop a solid understanding of a topic. Search online for the top books lists on the subject and after comparing a few such lists you will be able to choose a few that seem to be recommended consistently.

For example — I am going through books on handling adversity. The books I have already read are: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, and Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. I am reading Do Hard Things by Steve Magness and will also read The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and Endure by Cameron Hanes.

Here is another example — next year, I plan to go over sci-fi books — some I will re-read, others I will read for the first time.

So explore what you are interested in, but also go into what intimidates you. I remember I approached Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain without particular interest. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Try difficult books. Long books. Books that seem to be offering a view that goes against your views. Finally, every once in a while, read what you want to read, even if it is something you won’t be very proud of. I have read the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer…

Read more by your favorite authors

The easiest method is — if you enjoyed a book by an author, check out other works by the same author. For example, when it comes to fiction, I love Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Erich Maria Remarque, Alexandre Dumas, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. After reading one book by these authors, I explored their other works and they did not disappoint! For non-fiction, a few such names include Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Pierre Hadot, Jonathan Haidt, Yuval Noah Harari, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Cal Newport, and Ryan Holiday.

Recommendations from the people whose taste you trust

This could be people in your immediate surroundings, people you don’t know, but admire and learn from, or historical figures. Talk to your friends and family and see what they are reading. I like the question Tim Ferriss has been asking everyone he interviewed when putting together the Tribe of Mentors: What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

You can check what are the book recommendations by your favorite authors, book-lover bloggers, or influencers you follow on Instagram, YouTube, or other platforms.

Here are some great resources online:

Farnam Street. This is an excellent resource on reading, but also learning, decision-making, and mental models. Since 2015, you can find annual book recommendations on this page.
Naval Ravikant’s Learn to Love to Read as well as his Recommended Reading.
Book recommendations from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits.
Books to base your life on from Ryan Holiday, the author of Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, Discipline is Destiny, Lives of the Stoics, and others.
Book recommendations from Mark Manson, the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything is F*cked
Book recommendations from Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Book recommendations from Jordan Peterson, the author of 12 Rules for Life, Beyond Order, and Maps of Meaning.
Farnam Street has dedicated pages to book recommendations from Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates. You can look up lists from other personalities.

There are great lists by the New York Times, the Guardian, Penguin Random House, and many, many other resources. Nowadays there is an endless supply of lists — best fiction and non-fiction books by year, decade, century, theme, author, country, and so on. You can check out: bestseller lists, recommendations on Goodreads and other similar pages, and books that have been nominated for various prizes — Pulitzer, Booker, and others. Explore away!

Join a Book Club

A book club of like-minded individuals can be a great place to find new interesting books to read, and then discuss them. Reading with other people may help with motivation, as well as help make new friends.

If you cannot find a book club, you can always create one. :)

My three friends and I have formed a group where, among other things, we share recommendations on the best books, articles, podcasts, and videos that we come across. Yes, this is technically not a book club, but the books we read are often the subject of our group conversations. Quite a few of the books I end up reading are recommended by this group. This forum is also useful when I need a trusted opinion on a book that I am tempted to read, but not sure if it is worth my time.

Explore “around” the book you like

Every time I come across a great fiction book, I try to find a couple of good review articles or YouTube videos. These often give ideas about what other books to explore beyond what I have just read.

Another tip is to try to see what works have inspired the authors whose works you enjoy.

Let Serendipity Do Its Work

Sometimes you will come across good recommendations randomly and unexpectedly. You can get a suggestion from a random article or a podcast.

Visit a bookstore and just hang around, checking out the sections you are interested in, but also those you don’t think you are interested in — sometimes you come across an interesting title even in unexpected places. Sometimes a random bookstore in an airport when you have half an hour to kill can be unexpectedly fun. I love bookstores. Walking in between shelves, touching books, flipping through the pages, taking in the atmosphere.

Finally, check out the bookshelves of your family and friends.

Read great books more than once!

Yes. The books that leave a deep impact, go over them again. And again. You will discover things you missed the first time. You are no longer the same person, so you will have different views and reactions. It will be a whole new experience.

My Book Recommendations:

Here are 10 works of fiction that I think are incredible. I could easily expand this list but these are, in my view, the absolute best. I have shared my views on these books in two separate articles — 7 of the Best Fiction Books and 7 More of the Best Fiction Books.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Martin Eden by Jack London
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Count of Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevski
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Don Quixote by Miguel de Servantes

Here are some exceptional works of non-fiction. This is trickier, because there are, of course, topics that are of interest to me and may be less interesting for you. But in terms of personal growth, learning, health, philosophy, the history of humanity, and the current state of affairs in the world, here are my top recommendations. For some of these, I have written articles with my takeaways. Again, this list can be much longer, but these are simply amazing:

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool
Anti-Fragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
Outlive by Peter Attia

At the end of the day, the number is not the point. It is just useful to give you a perspective on how much you read over a long period and what adjustments you may need to make. Read. Just read. Read more and you will be better at it. You will be able to connect ideas and concepts across time and space, feed your creativity, and grow.

Find what inspires you to take action.

The modern life is filled with distractions. We are bombarded with alternatives to reading. Any entertainment is at our fingertips. Concentrating on reading, especially deep reading is not easy. So make good choices that will help maintain motivation to read. Read. Share what you read. And maybe one day your reading lists will be an inspiration for others.

I leave you with this beautiful quote from Jorge Luis Borges:

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
―Jorge Luis Borges

If you liked this read, check out my home page for articles about learning, self-improvement, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, literature, and more. Here are some you may be interested in:

How to Choose What To Read

Choose Well — It Is More Important Than You Might Think

Written by Rational Badger