Posted: Oct 2024; Edited: July 2025

I love reading and read almost every night. However, I’ve begun to worry that I’m not reading well. Someone I know of had developed a terminal condition. Life is short; I want to spend what little book time I have reading well.

Let’s clarify: what is reading well? What is reading poorly? As with all normative questions, there is no right answer. But here’s mine: I read to get inspired. I read to grow. I read for insights because it’s delightful to learn something new.

So maybe what I’m trying to say is that I like engaging with ideas, and reading is my preferred medium. From this view, I’d be right to question what I read as I’d be right to question what I eat. Garbage in, garbage out. Except instead of growing fat, reading poorly is pernicious. It pollutes the mind with bad ideas. And what are we, if not an idea of ourselves?

But enough dilly-dallying. How do we find good content out there?

A first pass is we go off the recommendations of others. I buy all my monitors and electronics based off of Reddit’s recommendation. Why? Because these people spend their free time talking about specs and graphic cards and pixel density. They’re probably more informed consumers than me. Of course, there’s always disagreement among what these experts say. But if 8 out of 10 are saying I should get the Dell U2723QE, then I’ll get it.

In this case, it’s easy to make a decision because (a) there’s some way to tell who’s an expert and (b) there’s a general consensus among experts. It’s similar to Obama’s argument a while back about climate change: if you go to a 100 doctors and 99 of them say you have a disease, you should get checked out.

When it comes to book recommendations, however, things aren’t as clear. You don’t know if someone is a book expert as easily as in other fields. If they’re a doctor, they have a degree from training. If they’re a personal trainer, presumably they’re fit. But unless you have your own way to evaluate ideas, you don’t know if someone’s book recommendations are solid.

Which brings me to the crux of this essay: you need to develop taste for yourself.

How do you do this? Well, you could read more. Read reviews. Read reviews of reviews. And these are all great. But if you’d like to read well, I’d argue that the only sure way to get there is to write well.

This stems from my belief that a great producer is an informed consumer. As an example: Not all food critics are great chefs, but all great chefs would make great food critics. Why? Because if you’re a great chef, then you know why a dish delights. If you didn’t, how else could you serve up great dishes day after day?

When you become a better producer, you can say more. You have more footholds to use. Instead of saying “this article is good” you say “this article is good because its structure is easy to follow.’’ Even better: “despite talking about a technical subject like gerrymandering, the author could clearly explain the mechanics because she wrote simply. Her word choice conveyed a lot of meaning while keeping the piece tight.“ Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from saying this if you don’t write. But if you do, you’d pick up on things most others wouldn’t since you’re familiar with the creative process.

Then it becomes a virtuous cycle. You read well by writing well. And you write well by reading well.

Of course, no one has the time to be an expert in everything; few of us will be experts in anything. When embarking upon a new hobby, the question then becomes: is this a worthy pursuit? For me, when it comes to reading and writing, the answer is unequivocal. Yes. I feel so awesome and alive when engaged with a cool idea.