Damned Good Books

This great post by Marco Giancotti titled You Don't Have Time to Read Books That Won't Change Your Life summarizes many things I wanted to write on how to pick what to read.

A Damned Good Book is a book that changes your life. As you read it, you become a different person.

It may be because it gives you knowledge that is both actually useful to you in practice and it sticks to your mind, entering your life-long mental toolkit like a new little superpower.

It may be that it offers you a new framing that immediately clicks for you, and you'll never see the world the same again.

Or it could gently plant an idea in your head that later flowers into something that makes a huge difference for the trajectory of your life.

Another great quote from the article:

Damned Good Books are gifts from the universe to you. They're made for you, and each is timed to open itself to you when you need them—never too soon, never too late.

Damned Good Books are better than plain "books", because by changing you they allow you to grow, and to grow is the only way to move on to the next stage in your life, whatever stage you choose to make it. Changing is synonymous to being alive. If there is any non-changing to be done, you can leave it to the rocks: they can do it better than you anyway.

This year I'm trying to improve my Damned Good Books to just-so books ratio. This implies thinking more about what questions I expect a book to answer. It means skimming through the book or dropping it if it becomes shallow or you already got the gist. It also means doing some more research before adding a book to my list.

Of course, this applies not only to books. How about social media, newsletters, and videos?

PS: I discovered Marco's website thanks to Manuel Moreale's interview in People & Blogs.