Posted: December 28, 2016, 10:43am
If you’ve known me even for a short time, you’ll quickly find out my love of reading. I pursue reading like the weapon of knowledge that it is. I try to be as fierce as possible when pursuing knowledge: whether it be through learning from someone personally, or learning from someone through their writings. Books are ripe for the taking: someone sat down, often for many months or years, and labored over what information, values, insight, wisdom they might pass on to us.
I read a lot for my PhD, yes. But as narrow as my thesis topic is, I also have interests that stem into broad areas. That is why I use a systematic approach to determining and tracking what I read. I originally got the idea to pursue a propaedia of knowledge from an article by a Christian blogger named Joe Carter, here. Here’s my system:
I have 13 categories that I wish to expand my knowledge within. I’ve adapted these from my own personal interests and needs, so feel free to choose your own or copy mine! At any given time, I hope to be reading from (or at least have the option of reading from) all of those categories. So I have a few books lined up that I want to buy, somewhere down the pipeline. After I finish a book, I’ll add it to the collection:
After I add it to the collection of my reading history, I *try* to analyze the book and write a summary and stick it into Evernote. I’m really bad at doing this post-reading synthesis, but I want to get better. I do, however, highlight and annotate my hard copies of books so that I can refer to the knowledge and ideas easier. It also helps with quick re-reading of important, impactful books!
As you can see from 2016 (blue), I did a little bit better job at expanding the types of categories of reading. We tend to read what is self-affirming and comfortable. It would be awesome to purposefully pursue knowledge-gaps of mine and fill in the blanks in my brain. I hope 2017 brings more opportunities to do just that!
In summary, books are a bountiful source of wisdom, if only we’d take advantage of it. If you read 2 chapters per day, you’ll likely finish most books in 2 weeks. That’s 24 books per year. We can do this.
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If you’re curious, the above graphic is kind of hard to read, so i’ll post the full list of the past year of reading here:
- Evolution of Cooperation
- Habits of Grace, David Mathis (Mar 15)
- When Breath Becomes Air (May 2)
- A song for Lya, George RR Martin (May 8)
- John MacArthur servant of these Word and Flock (May 21)
- The Rise of Nazi Germany – Charles River Editors (May 23)
- Bonhoeffer Abridged -Metaxas (Jun 23)
- The Anthem – Ayn Rand (June 29)
- The One Thing – Gary Keller (July 2)
- Art for God’s sake – Ryken (July 6)
- Life Together (Sept 17)
- Christ’s Glorious Achievements (Nov 23)
- Married For God – Chris Ash (Dec 14)
- Loving the Old Testament (Dec 25)
Published on July 26th, 2017
Last updated on August 10th, 2017