Read Fewer Books

> Strikingly, the most intelligent and thoughtful intellectual of the early church seems to have read fewer things than an average modern eight year old. To follow the depiction by Antonello da Messina, St Jerome appears to be the proud owner of about ten books in all!

What is a painting from 1475 supposed to tell us about the reading habits of the real St. Jerome, patron saint of librarians?

The paper "A History of Early Christian Libraries from Jesus to Jerome" by Thomas M. Tanner looks like a good source of information on the subject, but sadly it's only available from JSTOR.

My biggest problem with this thinking is that it seems to consider "books" a unit of measure rather than distinct objects. Surely there are those among us who use the amount of books we've read as a sort of decoration for our intellect, but that's not really the point of reading books.The point is to make the knowledge in the books a part of us so we can live a better life. For that end some books are clearly better than others.

However I agree with the idea that it's impossible, and I would argue undesirable, to keep up with the "parade of new titles" put out by publishers.

So if we can't keep up but reading is still worth it, then the question becomes "How do we decide what to read?".

For my part I've found that the more old books I read the more I realize that many modern books are ful of old ideas with a slight (sometimes very slight) twist. So now I'm working through classics and only reading things sparingly. The criteria I've picked up is:

1. The book must have been around for at least a few generations

2. The book must have had a significant impact on how the world, or a field, is viewed

3. The book must be highly regarded by those who study it, even if they disagree with it

4. The book must deal with topics that are relevant to today (love, leadership, etc.)

This naturally leads to many so-called "classics". In reading them I've found that I rarely feel my time has been wasted, I feel I have a broader perspective, and I feel I've been able to elevate a bit above the frothy front end of new pop psychology/business/hero worship titles.

I think that as long as there are people "above you", be it in net wealth, income, cost for their houses or what, you'll always be tempted to think you are "normal" or rather on the low-end.

At least I notice that I sometimes think that way when I wonder why people do not buy something they like or sth. like that.

Thanks for that, very interesting topic. But surely large sporting events have existed alongside large religion for some thousands of years (Roman events are the obvious example). Perhaps both trying to get at the same thing but not being that thing themselves.

Thanks for this. I've begun a collection of quotes on not reading, to balance out my much larger collection of books. A couple quotes:

"Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works....Everywhere means nowhere. " - Seneca

"How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press -- The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus, we may see terrorists described as heroes, or secret matters pertaining to one's nation's defense publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "Everyone is entitled to know everything." But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era. People also have the right not to know and it's a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls [stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk.] A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harvard commencement address