Cal Newport's Book Selection Process

00:00:00.000 | All right.

00:00:00.560 | What do I got next?

00:00:01.840 | All right.

00:00:02.960 | Next question is from Jay.

00:00:04.320 | How do you choose what book to read next?

00:00:07.280 | Good question, Jay.

00:00:09.280 | There's two main ways that books come onto my

00:00:14.000 | radar of things I need to read.

00:00:15.360 | It's either functional.

00:00:17.680 | So I need it for research.

00:00:20.560 | Maybe I'm working on an article or I'm working

00:00:22.240 | on a book chapter and I need to read something

00:00:24.160 | because I need to know that information.

00:00:25.520 | So there's functional ways that things come

00:00:27.200 | onto my list of things to read.

00:00:33.120 | Everything else is inspirational.

00:00:34.720 | That looks interesting.

00:00:36.800 | Let's get that and read that as soon as possible

00:00:39.200 | after I get it.

00:00:39.920 | So it's sort of like spontaneous or functional

00:00:41.840 | or inspirational and functional.

00:00:43.200 | So I just looked here.

00:00:44.960 | I have four books I bought.

00:00:47.280 | I bought four books in the last week.

00:00:49.120 | So I thought I would just go through those

00:00:51.360 | and I'll for each let you know what the motivation was.

00:00:56.800 | These are four books that hopefully I'll probably

00:00:58.400 | read these all within the next three or four weeks.

00:00:59.840 | That'd be the idea.

00:01:00.560 | So I bought First Man by James Hansen.

00:01:04.800 | So James, it's a biography of Neil Armstrong.

00:01:08.000 | It's because I was watching Damon Chazelle's

00:01:11.200 | movie First Man, which by the way is underrated.

00:01:13.760 | I think it's a fantastic movie, especially if

00:01:15.600 | you can watch it on a good screen with a good

00:01:17.280 | sound system.

00:01:18.320 | I don't want to geek out about his use of 16

00:01:22.320 | millimeter film and the cockpits.

00:01:23.840 | And there's like a lot of really interesting

00:01:25.440 | decisions he makes.

00:01:26.720 | It's Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy from The Crown,

00:01:31.840 | whatever.

00:01:32.160 | So I was watching this movie, which is great.

00:01:34.000 | And I want to write, I want to read the book

00:01:35.520 | it's based off of.

00:01:36.240 | So that was just inspiration.

00:01:37.360 | Yeah, let's do this.

00:01:38.480 | Karen Armstrong's new book, Sacred Nature.

00:01:40.320 | I love Karen Armstrong's work.

00:01:42.720 | I talked about the case for God and the history

00:01:44.720 | of God a lot on this podcast.

00:01:46.320 | He has a new book out about the ways that people

00:01:49.200 | have found sacredness and nature throughout history.

00:01:52.480 | I mean, of course I'm on board for that type of thing.

00:01:54.240 | I saw that just mentioned in the New Yorkers

00:01:56.080 | roundup of the best books of the year so far.

00:01:58.080 | Boom, just ordered that short book.

00:02:00.080 | You know, I'll read it in a few days.

00:02:01.280 | Very excited for that.

00:02:02.080 | I also bought Super Intelligence by Nick Bostrom.

00:02:05.760 | This is an AI ethics type book.

00:02:09.120 | It's for an article, right?

00:02:11.280 | So that's more like homework.

00:02:12.640 | I'm reading a chapter every morning of that.

00:02:14.560 | And then there's 15 chapters.

00:02:16.720 | I'm reading a chapter every morning as a baseline.

00:02:19.520 | And then I'm going to throw in here and there

00:02:22.640 | extra sessions to read a couple more chapters here and there.

00:02:25.120 | So I can get it done within 10 days would be nice.

00:02:28.160 | And then I also just bought right before I came here,

00:02:31.200 | John Meacham's new Lincoln biography.

00:02:34.320 | I am a big, I'm a Lincoln fan.

00:02:37.520 | I read a lot of Lincoln stuff, but I'm particularly excited

00:02:39.760 | about Meacham's new biography for a lot of reasons.

00:02:42.560 | I read a great review of it in the Washington Post

00:02:44.400 | book world this weekend.

00:02:45.760 | And so that's on its way.

00:02:47.120 | It's a big book.

00:02:47.840 | I'll find time to read it.

00:02:49.760 | I want to get that done in November if I can as well.

00:02:51.600 | So there you go.

00:02:52.240 | It's a mix of inspiration and functionality.

00:02:56.160 | And if I get inspired, I buy it.

00:02:58.240 | I want to get into that book before the inspiration dies down.

00:03:00.960 | When you're reading enough, you can get through a lot of books.

00:03:02.880 | So on a given month, how many books do you read

00:03:06.480 | or how many books do you buy?

00:03:07.600 | Sorry.

00:03:07.920 | I mean, five.

00:03:11.840 | So last week you bought a lot of your quota.

00:03:16.400 | Yeah.

00:03:16.640 | I have all I need for the next month, but sometimes I buy in books.

00:03:21.600 | I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I need

00:03:23.040 | like this chapter and that chapter for an article

00:03:25.360 | or book research, like that's worth 25 bucks to me.

00:03:28.080 | Yeah.

00:03:28.560 | If I can get a good example out of something, but yeah,

00:03:31.520 | I bought a lot of my quota in a big burst.

00:03:33.760 | And then you take trips to the library too

00:03:36.000 | every once in a while too, right?

00:03:37.360 | Yeah.

00:03:37.760 | And we have Little Free Libraries in my town.

00:03:40.240 | They're really big.

00:03:41.680 | My town is really big on these Little Free

00:03:43.280 | Libraries are everywhere.

00:03:44.320 | And I get a lot of good books out of those.

00:03:46.480 | It's just a take a book, leave a book type system.

00:03:48.640 | Are those on the side of the road?

00:03:49.840 | Yeah.

00:03:50.240 | Okay.

00:03:50.480 | I've seen them.

00:03:50.800 | Have you seen them to like, they look like mailboxes.

00:03:52.800 | Yeah.

00:03:53.120 | I walked by one.

00:03:54.480 | Yeah.

00:03:54.640 | You can, I mean, this is like Willy Wonka's

00:03:57.360 | factory for me, for my personality is this town.

00:04:00.640 | It's like, just wander around and just pick up

00:04:04.480 | free books from these like well-educated peoples,

00:04:08.240 | like their professors, Little Free Libraries,

00:04:10.080 | and just walk around and just like pick up free books.

00:04:12.480 | So when you're done picking up free books, go

00:04:13.840 | to like one of our mini coffee shops to just

00:04:15.600 | sort of like sit and drink coffee and read.

00:04:17.440 | And it's a cool town.

00:04:18.720 | It's a good, it's a good match for me.

00:04:20.640 | Though I should stop promoting it because we

00:04:23.120 | don't want too many more people to move here.

00:04:24.640 | It's getting expensive.

00:04:25.760 | So yeah.

00:04:27.440 | Do not move here.

00:04:29.200 | Helps your house value though.

00:04:30.400 | It does help the house value.

00:04:31.440 | There's a cool town.

00:04:33.120 | It's quaint.

00:04:33.680 | It has a lot of books and good coffee shops.

00:04:36.880 | That's all good.

00:04:37.520 | Infested with werewolves.

00:04:39.440 | So just, you know, caveat emptier, otherwise great.

00:04:43.760 | Good books, good coffee.

00:04:46.160 | You may have your flesh be devoured by a

00:04:47.840 | lichen trope, so you just got to balance that out.

Cal Newport's Book Selection Process

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