Read a Damn Book: Why Books Still Matter
There are few hills I am more willing to die on than this:
Reading books is good for you.
Groundbreaking, I know.
Somewhere, a scholar just fell out of their chair.
But apparently, in an age where we can consume a stranger's 47-second opinion about geopolitics while simultaneously watching a dancing cat and ordering toilet paper from our phones, we need to say it again:
Read a book.
Not because books make you better than other people.
Not because everyone needs to walk around quoting Dostoevsky at parties.
And certainly not because reading War and Peace automatically makes you interesting.
Frankly, some of the most insufferable people I've ever encountered probably read plenty.
No.
Read because books do something increasingly rare in modern life.
They require you to slow the hell down.
Your Brain Is Not a TikTok Account
We are living through an extraordinary experiment in human attention.
Notifications.
Videos.
Headlines.
Podcasts.
Texts.
Advertisements.
Reels.
Emails.
More notifications.
And somewhere between the infinite scroll and the algorithmically selected video of a raccoon stealing someone's sandwich, we've apparently decided sustained attention is optional.
It isn't.
Reading requires something different from us.
You have to follow an idea.
Remember what happened three chapters ago.
Encounter unfamiliar words.
Imagine places that don't physically exist.
Consider perspectives that aren't your own.
And—God forbid—you occasionally encounter an opinion you don't like.
The horror.
Reading is not passive consumption.
At least, good reading isn't.
You participate.
Your brain fills in the images.
Your memory connects ideas.
Your imagination constructs worlds.
You argue with the author.
You underline something.
You reread a paragraph.
You close the book and sit there for a moment thinking:
Well... shit.
That's learning.
Reading Isn't Just About Becoming "Smart"
Of course, reading helps us learn.
That's the obvious part.
Reading can expand vocabulary, expose us to new information, strengthen comprehension, and help develop critical-thinking skills. Literacy researchers continue to emphasize that strong reading skills are foundational to broader learning and independent thinking.
But books do something more interesting, too.
They let us borrow lives.
You can be born in Lincoln City, Oregon, in 1989—or anywhere else—and still spend an afternoon inside the mind of someone who lived in ancient Rome.
You can experience the American Revolution.
The Holocaust.
A Soviet labor camp.
A childhood in Afghanistan.
A courtroom in Alabama.
A village you've never visited.
A future that doesn't exist.
A fictional universe with dragons.
And yes.
Sometimes you can spend 400 pages worrying about whether two imaginary people will finally admit they're in love.
No judgment.
Books expand the boundaries of experience.
They allow us to encounter people and perspectives we might never otherwise meet.
That matters.
Especially now.
Books Can Teach Us How Other People Feel
Recent research from Oxford University Press examining the experiences of more than 3,000 children found something beautiful: reading isn't merely helping children recognize words.
It's helping them understand themselves and other people.
More than four in five children surveyed said reading helped them learn new words for feelings and emotions.
Seventy percent said reading helped them understand why people feel or behave the way they do.
And 68 percent said reading encouraged them to think about how they treat other people.
Think about that for a moment.
A book can introduce a child to grief before they experience it.
Loneliness.
Bullying.
Fear.
Friendship.
Loss.
Courage.
Racism.
Love.
Failure.
Hope.
The child doesn't have to experience every tragedy personally to begin understanding that other human beings experience them.
That might be one of the most extraordinary things books do.
They allow us to practice being human.
Reading May Even Help You Live Longer
Now, before everyone runs out and purchases seventeen books because apparently I'm selling immortality...
Calm down.
Reading is not the Fountain of Youth.
Unfortunately.
But a fascinating 2016 study involving 3,635 adults found that book readers had a survival advantage compared with non-book readers over the study's 12-year follow-up period.
The researchers found that book reading was associated with a 20 percent reduction in mortality risk compared with not reading books, after accounting for several relevant factors. The study also found a stronger survival advantage for book reading than for reading newspapers or magazines. The researchers suggested cognitive engagement played an important role in this association.
So, scientifically speaking, I am not saying:
"Read Meditations and live forever."
I'm saying that regularly engaging your brain appears to matter.
Which, frankly, shouldn't surprise us.
Your brain is an organ.
Use it.
Challenge it.
Give it something more demanding than arguing with strangers on Facebook.
Six Minutes Is Better Than Zero Minutes
One of the things I appreciate about research on reading is that it doesn't necessarily require you to disappear into a cabin for eight hours every day.
You don't have to become Henry David Thoreau.
You can read for a few minutes.
A chapter.
Ten pages.
Five pages.
One page.
The important thing is that you start.
Several of the sources examining reading and well-being point to evidence suggesting that even brief periods of reading can help reduce stress and promote relaxation.
And honestly?
I believe it.
There is something almost rebellious about putting your phone down.
Opening a book.
And allowing your brain to focus on one thing.
Just one.
No alerts.
No comments.
No one screaming at you.
No algorithm deciding what you should be angry about next.
Just...
words.
Imagine that.
Books Are Also a Beautifully Inefficient Technology
And I mean that as a compliment.
A book doesn't optimize everything for you.
It doesn't automatically summarize itself.
It doesn't tell you the "Top Five Things You Need to Know."
It doesn't flash a red notification when you've reached the most important paragraph.
You have to do the work.
You have to decide what's important.
You have to remember.
You have to interpret.
You have to question.
And sometimes you have to realize that you spent three weeks reading a book you absolutely hated.
Congratulations.
You survived.
That's also part of reading.
Not every book will change your life.
Some books will bore you to death.
Some books will make you angry.
Some books will challenge beliefs you've carried for years.
Some books will be so extraordinary that you will immediately want to force them into the hands of everyone you know.
And some books will sit quietly on your shelf for ten years before you finally understand why you needed to read them.
That's the magic.
A book doesn't have to be useful in the moment to matter.
At Aletheia, We Read on Purpose
This is one of the foundations of Aletheia Courses.
We don't just read books because reading is a respectable hobby.
We read because books give us an opportunity to investigate ideas.
To encounter arguments.
To question assumptions.
To travel through history.
To understand people.
To recognize propaganda.
To discover perspectives we might otherwise avoid.
And, perhaps most importantly:
To think for ourselves.
You don't have to agree with every author.
Please don't.
That would defeat the purpose.
Read Howard Zinn.
Then read his critics.
Read Marcus Aurelius.
Then ask whether Stoicism actually works for you.
Read Michelle Alexander.
Read Richard Rothstein.
Read Orwell.
Read someone you politically disagree with.
Read someone who makes you uncomfortable.
Read fiction.
Read history.
Read philosophy.
Read something completely ridiculous.
Just read.
Because the point isn't to build a bookshelf that makes you look intellectual on Zoom.
The point is to build a mind that can encounter an idea without immediately collapsing into panic.
And Then There Was Dolly
I want to end this one with Dolly Parton.
Because of course I do.
Dolly understood something that many intellectuals manage to make unnecessarily complicated:
Put books in children's hands.
Her Imagination Library began in 1995 and was inspired, in part, by her father's inability to read and write. The program provides free, age-appropriate books to children from birth to age five, regardless of family income, through partnerships with local communities. What began in Dolly's home county in Tennessee grew into an international book-gifting program serving children in multiple countries.
I love that.
No complicated philosophical manifesto.
No ten-point political program.
No cable-news debate.
Just:
Here's a book.
Here's another one.
Maybe you'll love it.
And maybe that's where we begin.
Not with another argument about what people should believe.
Not with another algorithm.
Not with another 14-second video explaining the entirety of human civilization.
A book.
A child.
A story.
An idea.
A question.
Because somewhere inside those pages, a person might encounter a thought that changes the trajectory of their life.
Maybe they'll become a doctor.
A teacher.
A scientist.
A philosopher.
A writer.
A singer.
Or perhaps they'll simply become someone capable of understanding another human being a little better.
And frankly?
We could use more of those.
So read a damn book.
Read one you love.
Read one you hate.
Read one that challenges you.
Read one that makes you laugh.
Read one your grandmother loved.
Read one nobody has heard of.
Read five pages before bed.
Read while your coffee gets cold.
Read to your children.
Let your children see you reading.
And if you haven't picked up a book in a while?
Don't overthink it.
Go find one.
The world will still be there when you finish the chapter.
Probably.
And if Dolly Parton could help put millions of books into the hands of children simply because she believed books could help them dream...
Well.
The least the rest of us can do is open one.
— Dr. Aletheia
