Lessons from 15 Years of Reading

My One-Book-Per-Week Journey

I’ve spent the last 15 years reading a lot of books. I’ve read books that changed me, books I barely remember, books I abandoned, and books I wished I had read sooner.

After 780 books, these are the patterns and principles that have emerged from my reading life:

1. Read what pulls you in. If you have to force yourself to turn the page, it’s probably not the right book for you — at least not right now.
2. Reading is best approached as exploration rather than achievement. The number of books matters far less than the curiosity that pulls you through them. Reading driven by genuine questions produces deeper insights than reading driven by goals or metrics.
3. Reading across disciplines creates compound interest for your mind. When I read about behavioral economics after reading about evolutionary biology, connections formed that neither author intended. These unexpected intellectual collisions have yielded my most original thinking.
4. Retention follows the application, not highlighting. I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve read, but never the concepts I immediately tried to teach someone else or apply in my work. Your brain filters for relevance; show it what matters through action.
5. Read at the speed of comprehension, not consumption. Some books demand weeks of slow digestion while others can be absorbed in an afternoon. Matching my pace to the material rather than holding to an arbitrary schedule improved both my enjoyment and understanding.
6. A book is a conversation with the past. Read authors from different centuries, and you’ll see how much changes — and how much stays the same.
7. Some books are seeds; others are water. Some plant ideas that take years to grow. Others nourish what’s already sprouting. Both are necessary.
8. The best books don’t just inform you; they rewire the way you think. You know you’ve found one when it echoes in your mind long after you close the cover.
9. A great book will find you when you’re ready. The right book at the wrong time is just words on a page. The right book at the right time is life-changing.
10. The format doesn’t matter, the content does. I’ve gone from hardcovers to Kindle to audiobooks. The medium changes, but the magic of a good story remains. I resisted audiobooks for a long time but now appreciate how they let me bring books into other parts of my day, like running.
11. Reading changes your relationship with time. The best books compress decades of someone’s thinking into hours of your time. This creates a profound respect for how ideas develop across generations and cultures.
12. Reading is a refuge. In a noisy world, books offer quiet moments of discovery and reflection. They’re a pause button for the mind.
13. Patience is a lost art. Thanks to Libby, I check out books from the library, but some popular titles come with a 26-week waitlist. When was the last time you waited 26 weeks for anything? In an era of instant gratification, that feels like an endurance challenge in itself.
14. Share the love. Watching my daughters discover their own joy in reading has been deeply fulfilling. Books are meant to be shared, and some of my best conversations have started with a simple book recommendation.
15. Books are conversations across time. Each page connects you with minds from across history and around the world. Listen closely.
16. Keep turning pages. Life changes and formats evolve, but the act of reading endures. It’s a lifelong journey of curiosity and discovery.
17. You don’t have to read a book a week. Just pick up something that intrigues you and start reading. The rest will follow.
18. I never understood the logic that if your last book was ___ your next book should be something similar. That undermines the curiosity of the reader and the vast number of options available. Great books lead to greater books, and minor books lead to great books. You never know what follows.
19. Books are conversations between your needs and the author’s learnings. It’s as personal as it gets. Often, after finishing a book I felt like writing an email, or picking up the phone to call the author and just say: “Thank you, I needed that.”
20. The most valuable reading skill is immersion. No matter where I am, or how much noise and distractions are around me, I can always manage to focus 5 or 10 minutes to read.
21. It’s not what you say you do; it’s what people see you do. We are models to people around us. When I claimed to read and I didn’t, my wife called me on my BS. When my kids see me reading often, they become readers too. No need to impose, no need to lecture.

This journey has never been about proving anything — it’s about curiosity, learning, and the quiet joy of discovering something new. And that’s why, year after year, I keep turning the page. A small passing comment from Hazel made me realize I wasn’t nurturing something I loved. Now, reading is a habit I share not just with my parents, who first surrounded me with books, but with my daughters, who have found their own love for reading. A lifelong conversation, passed down one book at a time.