Diversifying Your Reading Portfolio

Reading is one of the best hobbies you can have because it’s a way to learn constantly. Many people read for entertainment purposes – they want to escape into a world or a mystery. That’s great! However, people often limit themselves to reading only one genre, which means you’re only learning from that one genre. I’m a proponent of reading widely across many topics.

Balancing genres across your reading is diversification. If you get bored with one genre, you can pick up something new. If you find something exciting, you can dive deep into the subject matter. You allow yourself creativity and flexibility when you have an array of subjects in your TBR pile. Some of the most prominent icons in our culture believe success in life and business is not necessarily deep specialization in one field but a broad generalization of knowledge across many areas. The ability to connect unique and seemingly unrelated concepts or techniques has rocketed people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel into all kinds of projects and companies. Reading is one way to be able to achieve that type of mindset.

Not everyone loves to read non-fiction books, just like not everyone loves fantasy or romance novels. Personal preferences are important because if you don’t like a book, you’re probably not learning from it. However, there are millions upon millions of books published each year. Read some reviews. Follow book reviewers online. Talk to your friends and people you admire and see what they are reading. Ask questions and try something new.

One of my favorite principles comes from Ryan Holiday, which is that each book you read can lead you to the next book on your list. How does that work? Non-fiction books cite their influential books and authors in the appendix, which is one place to start. I recently read Helen Russell’s How to Be Sad, and in those pages, I found The Psychology of Weather. Fun! It may be slightly more difficult with fiction writers, but you only need to look to an author’s social media to get new ideas. Both Tricia O’Malley and V.E. Schwab have shared their TBR pile and authors they read, as well as authors who influenced them.

There’s no right or wrong way to read, but if you feel a bit bedraggled by your books, try spicing things up with a new genre. There’s so much to read!