Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes, in his book Fooled by Randomness, “Minimal exposure to the media should be a guiding principle for someone involved in decision making under uncertainty—including all participants in financial markets.”7 His key argument is that what is reported in the media is noise rather than information, but most people do not realize that the media is paid to get our attention.
The key lesson is that, in the pursuit of wisdom, we must read much more of what has endured over time (such as history or biographies) than what is ephemeral (such as daily news, social media trends, and the like). I agree with Andrew Ross, who says, “The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television.”8
All of the history of humankind is a short chapter in the history of biology. And all of biology is a short chapter in the history of the planet. And the planet is a short chapter in the history of the universe.
—Will and Ariel Durant
Will and Ariel Durant’s work compresses five thousand years of history into one hundred pages of conclusions. It focuses on timeless truths, not on today’s trends—the antithesis of social media. The book highlights the lessons of history, not the events that define it. It explains how all of life, from the simplicity of single-celled organisms to the complexity of humans, is governed by the laws and trials of evolution. The laws of biology double as the fundamental lessons of history. All beings are subject to the processes and trials of evolution. Only the fittest survive. Natural selection leads to better qualities being retained and passed along. The result is a constant cycle of improvement for the whole.
Always respect the old. Apply the “Lindy effect” to reading and learning. According to Nassim Taleb, “The Lindy effect is a concept that the future life expectancy of some nonperishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy.”9 So, a book that has stood the test of time and survived fifty or one hundred or five hundred years and is still widely read because it contains timeless wisdom is expected to survive another fifty or one hundred or five hundred years for that very reason—that is, its wisdom is timeless.
The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
—Mark Twain
One should read on varied topics, such as health and fitness, personal finance, investing, business, economics, decision making, human behavior, history, philosophy, self-awareness, and, of course, life. Reread the classics in these fields on a regular basis. Use the Lindy effect to your advantage. Also, share your latest book purchases with like-minded friends. It’s a lot of fun to co-read and exchange insights.
Reading for understanding narrows the gap between reader and writer. How can we read better to bridge this gap?
How to Read a Book
The goal of reading determines how you should read. Although many people are proficient in reading for information and entertainment, few improve their ability to read for knowledge.
Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren have written the seminal book on reading. Their How to Read a Book provides the necessary skills to read anything. Adler and Van Doren identify four levels of reading: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical. Before we can improve reading skills, we need to understand the differences among these reading levels. They are discussed as levels because you must master one level before you can move to a higher level. They are cumulative, and each level builds on the preceding one.
Here is how Adler and Van Doren describe these four levels:
1. Elementary reading. This is the most basic level of reading as taught in our elementary schools. It is when we move from illiteracy to literacy.
2. Inspectional reading. This is another name for “scanning” or “superficial reading.” It means giving a piece of writing a quick yet meaningful advance review to evaluate the merits of a deeper reading experience. Whereas the question that is asked at the first level (elementary reading) is “What does the sentence say?” the question typically asked at this level is “What is the book about?”
3. Analytical reading. Analytical reading is a thorough reading. This is the stage at which you make the book your own by conversing with the author and asking many organized questions. Asking a book questions as you read makes you a better reader. But you must do more. You must attempt to answer the questions you are asking. While you could do this in your mind, Adler and Van Doren argue that it’s much easier to do this with a pencil in your hand. “The pencil,” they argue, “becomes the sign of your alertness while you read.”
Adler and Van Doren share the many ways to mark a book. They recommend that we underline or circle the main points; draw vertical lines at the margin to emphasize a passage already underlined or too long to be underlined; place a star, asterisk, or other symbol at the margin for emphasis; place numbers in the margin to indicate a sequence of points made in developing an argument; place page numbers of other pages in the margin to remind ourselves where else in the book the author makes the same points; circle keywords or phrases; and write our questions (and perhaps answers) in the margin (or at the top or bottom of the pages). This is how we remember the best ideas out of the books we read, long after we have read them—by making a book our own through asking questions and seeking answers within it. As Cicero said, “Nothing so much assists learning as writing down what we wish to remember.”
4. Syntopical reading. Thus far, we have been learning about how to read a book. The highest level of reading, syntopical reading, allows you to synthesize knowledge from a comparative reading of several books about the same subject. This is where the real virtue of reading is actualized.
Syntopical reading, also known as comparative reading, involves reading many books on the same subject and then comparing and contrasting the ideas, insights, and arguments within them. In syntopical reading, you create a latticework of the information in those books, along with your own life experiences and personal knowledge, to create mental models and new insights and form an understanding of the world that never quite existed before. This is the step that prepares the way for an original thinker to make a breakthrough.
It’s a lot of fun to do this—to find connections between seemingly unconnected ideas from different disciplines. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this activity, because it has often led to many instances of serendipity and good fortune in my investing journey.
I usually read multiple nonfiction books in tandem. I pick the one that interests me the most at the time and read at least one full chapter. If it keeps my interest, I keep going for another chapter. But if not, I’ll jump to another book and read a full chapter. (It is harder to do this with fiction because you tend to lose the train of the plot and narrative.) I read this way because I start to see patterns across books about different topics. You may be reading one book on economics, one on business strategy, and another one on physics. Then, suddenly, something pops up that represents a common thread among those themes.
The past is not fixed. Yes, it is true. The past is not fixed. Reading can change this because a new book can make you aware of something incredible in an old book that you previously had not recognized. This is how knowledge compounds. Something you perceived to be of low value in an old book transforms into something of significant value, unlocked by another book in the future.
Therefore, no books are necessarily “the best.” Usually, some combination of books, in unison, produce a big, nonlinear impact. Although many books may seem unrelated to one another, in reality they are all connected through some common threads. This realization creates a significant advantage, because it lets your interests pull you along, rather than forcing you to set a self-imposed deadline to finish a book. And if a book doesn’t interest you, you just abandon it to save time and move on to something more interesting. Reading multiple books simultaneously, quitting those that are