OK, back in June & July, I covered two key benefits of reading:

Knowledge, Experience & Inspiration – a constant & wide-ranging diet of non-fiction reading’s essential for any investor, and something you’ll find all the great investors practice & recommend. 

Nosce Te Ipsum - I believe reading literature’s equally important, it’s one of the few ways you can truly know thyself (& other people). And painful self-awareness & examination offer the best hope of avoiding the potentially devastating impact of fear & greed on your portfolio.

It’s been a long time coming – let’s tackle the final benefit of reading, which I call:  Magic Eye. It’s definitely the most exciting – I guess I’d classify it as offensive, versus the rather defensive nature of the other benefits. But some context would be useful – let’s first talk a little about how I actually read:

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always found it incredible how the entire world (even multiple worlds) can be encapsulated in a single book. And there’s almost never-ending mountains of them, just waiting to be discovered! In fact, they really are never-ending: In the UK, for example, 150,000 new titles are published each year! Faced with those kinds of numbers, I’ve always felt an overwhelming sense of urgency - how can I ever bloody read quickly & widely enough to ever make a dent in such a mountain?!

 

But that’s exactly what I’ve always tried to do – to read voraciously, as many pages & as many books as possible. If I read a hundred pages or two, and need a break, I crack open a fresh book instead – preferably something very different. I find my mood’s changed, I’ll reach for another book. If I want to kick back & put my feet up – well, that might deserve yet another book. It’s a bit like running a marathon – your mood changes, or your energy level, or maybe your pace slackens – but you never stop running. I usually end up reading a half-dozen, maybe even a dozen, different books at a time. And even if I gallop through them, I was astonished long ago to discover it all gets filed away, somewhere in my subconscious – the dross sinks into the depths, leaving the best writing & the best books to float…

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