Learn to Love Reading - Alex Wieckowski

When I heard about Alex Wieckowski I thought I had a kindred spirit in a reader, but after reading his book and following his newsletter it's mostly fluff. This is nothing more than a bunch of quotes about reading, some of them from very questionable people, who were questionable long before Alex included them, like Jordan Peterson.

Yes there are also some quotes from the likes of Haruki Murakami, but the fluff is so heavy in this book that it's not worth the time spent sifting through it for the few decent nuggets.

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> There is an undeniable correlation between functional illiteracy, poverty, and crime - in fact, eleven states predict their future need for prison cells based on the reading levels of their fourth graders. Books can change lives, yes, and so can the lack of them. - Roxanne Coady Page 7
- ORLY
- are there any stats I can find that support that statement? Are those stats well founded? Why is this not cited in fact, why aren't all the quotes cited?

> If you read only the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. - Haruki Murakami Page 15


> People say they don't have time to read but it's just not true. The average person today reads more words per day than ever before. If you add up all the emails, Instagram comments, texts, tweets, and news articles you read on a daily basis, you're actually reading the equivalent of a 200-page book each day. - Neil Pasricha Page 78

^2c16cb

- but reading a book requires singular focus in a world that wants us to [[multi-tasking|multitask]] all the time. We are training our brains out of single focus tasks and [[Deep Work]]. It feels "easy" to read all the random crap instead of sitting down without distractions to focus on one thing...the book in front of us.

> The quality of your thoughts is determined by the quality of your reading. - James Clear Page 89
- so going back to Page 78, if you're only reading light crap...how deep can your thoughts be?

> Books allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media. - Mark Zuckerberg Page 120
- ironic as he runs one of the biggest time sucks on the planet that takes you away from reading and destroys your focus and your time to read books.

> Of course anyone who truly loves books buys more of them than he or she can hope to read in one fleeting lifetime. A good book, resting unopened in its slot on a shelf, full of majestic potentiality, is the most comforting sort of intellectual wallpaper. - David Quammen Page 182
- so that's my excuse