8 Tips to Pick Books That Help You Grow
Reading is one of the best things you can do for personal development and growth. Even so, not everything available is worth your time, especially since individuals have more self-publishing tools than ever that more easily allow any idea into the market. So, how do you pick books that will help or influence you?
1. Ensure the topic is something you haven’t explored before or offers new information.
It’s fine to read more from an author you like. It’s also OK to get a recommendation on books that are “like” something you’ve already read sometimes. But these methods can keep you from exposing yourself to new ideas, facts, or writing styles if you lean on them too heavily.
Challenge yourself to hop genres. Focus on the newest releases. Ask others what they have learned from. Scour the table of contents. All of these strategies ensure you don’t get just a variation on a familiar theme.
2. Pick books without referencing bestseller lists.
People often perceive books on current bestseller lists to be better or more meaningful than others. But these books also often hit on popular concepts or are marketed for a mass response. There’s also evidence that those lists are tainted by bias and less than ethical practices (e.g., publishers ordering more books from stores that report sales to “top” lists).
So, look for voices that haven’t been discovered, provide the less popular rebuttal, or challenge genre convention. If you must use a list, use lists that highlight books that have endured over many years or decades beyond trends.
3. Look for lessons, not blurbs.
By default, book covers are going to include positive blurbs from influential people who laud the content. That’s part of the traditional marketing strategy. Subsequently, blurbs don’t do much to set one piece of content apart from the next. What you want is to find out what those influential people learned from the books. Individuals with strong reputations often talk about those lessons and how they applied them in more depth in interviews, Ted Talks, unsolicited social media posts, or blog posts.
4. Be conscious of the reading level.
Some of the most well-known books (e.g., Les Miserables, The Origin of the Species) have higher reading levels. This doesn’t mean you should avoid them. But it does mean that you might need to give yourself more time to finish, reflect, and understand. Books that are written at a grade school level can be much easier to digest quickly, even though the concepts they cover might be incredibly innovative or controversial.
5. Have a clear goal or question to answer when you pick books.
There are thousands of titles available. So, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds if you don’t know exactly what you want your next read to deliver. If you have a clear objective or a specific query to investigate, you’ll narrow your list of books to consider dramatically. The table of contents should provide clues beyond the dust jacket about whether the author can teach you in a specific way.
6. Look past familiar phrases or jargon you know.
On the one hand, if the goal or question you have when you select a book is specific enough, you might want a text that treats you as an insider to a certain degree. But if the jargon or familiar phrases are too thick, the odds that you’re breaking away into new territory and getting something of real, memorable value goes down. Look for authors who have their own conversational voice. Expand away from those who speak only in convoluted terminology or genre defaults.
7. Pick books that avoid repetition, intros, and recaps.
Unless you pick up a textbook with consistent “for study” or “review” sections, introductions (e.g., “In this chapter, you’ll learn…”) and recaps (e.g., “main takeaways”) often aren’t helpful. The real place to determine what’s coming is the table of contents. The text itself should focus on a concise, forward presentation of information. Phrases like “As I mentioned” or “Again” can be a sign that the author is repeating ideas and didn’t organize well, especially if those phrases appear heavily.
In fiction, repetition often comes in the form of characters pondering past events over and over again. Characters also might use excessive time to discuss or inform other characters about those events. The result usually is pacing that is too slow or readers getting distracted by the jump backward.
8. Check sources.
Not all books need other sources. Fiction certainly won’t, and neither will most first-person memoirs or “how I did it” books. But many nonfiction categories should have them. Look for books that consistently and clearly reference studies or other reputable texts or agencies in a balanced way. The better the sourcing, the better the chances are that the author’s argument, expertise, and authority aren’t easy to dismiss and that you can get even more information if you want it.
With limited time and money, it’s OK to be discerning about what you read. With the strategies above, that task will be significantly easier.
The original version of this post appeared February 13, 2020 on LinkedIn.
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