A Lifetime Reading Plan

The beginning of a more structured approach to my reading

The Reader by Frank Weston Benson, c1906

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Have you ever sat down and consciously planned what you want to read?  I certainly have not, my reading has been chaotic and unstructured; selecting books because the topic appeals to me in the moment, not because they are part of a plan.  That is not to say it is necessarily a bad thing, it has worked up to a point for me so far.  I have managed to read my way through a fair number of the Classics, a more the respectable amount of history, together with a range of other topics from the esoteric through to science. 

My reading has been materially helped by two key personality traits.  Firstly, I love to learn, to the point of obsession.  There is virtually no fact or topic which I have yet to find aspects of at least intriguing.  Secondly, reading is a passion and always has been.  As a child, my parents would try in vain to engage me in conversation or what was going on the around me while I remained happily buried in whatever book I was reading.  Both my parents are readers too, so the habit was instilled early; my mother and I still have an outstanding competition of who will finish Ulysees first, so far we both fail at breakfast and have yet to get any further in.  As I write the book is staring accusingly at me from the bookshelf.

It was with interest therefore that I came across Ted Gioia’s post about his lifetime reading plan.  He had set out as a young adult to work on a structured reading plan in which he targeted topics he wished to understand and selected books to fill the gaps.  In his post Ted sets out a number of tips which he uses to guide his reading, a set of principles if you will.  These range from setting aside dedicated reading time to acknowledging that what we all learn in school was of little to know use.  I was immediately entranced by this idea and set out to construct my own plan. Of course he is not the only reader to come up with this idea, I also found this list by Philip Ward.

For any reading plan to be successful it has to be individual.  I decided that in order to construct a reading plan I needed to first go step by step, rather than dive straight in to selecting books.

Step 1: Clarify my aims for my reading plan

I have long been conscious that in my reading I have avoided certain topics, prejudged books and authors, and gravitated towards the entertaining, familiar, ego enhancing or the immediately required.  Yes I admit that I read War & Peace at 14 in under two weeks because I wanted to be able to brag about it, I devoured it because I found a complex and rich story.  I believe that my reading pattern has been so chaotic because there was no guiding aim or set of values which I was trying to fulfil. 

In setting out my aims for reading it is a reminder of why I am reading certain books or authors and what I want to achieve.  It is all too easy to avoid subjects or writers with whom one is likely to disagree or which may not be enjoyable to read.  I don’t imagine, for example, that I am going to agree with Karl Marx or even Adam Smith but they are both on the list. 

One key aim for me is to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.  As an example, I have read quite a bit about history but my knowledge of the two World Wars is sketchy at best.  Most of the key moments I know anything about (and it is very little) are either directly related to the experiences of my grandparents or through conversations with my husband for whom WW2 is an area of interest.  I am aiming in the short term for a broad knowledge base or a framework which I can utilise to provide some structure, the depth may come later.

Of the five key aims I set out the most important is the aim of lifelong learning.  I don’t want to stop, ever.  However, I cannot hope to master all that I want to, and neither is mastery an aim.  As Oliver Burkeman set out in his excellent Four Thousand Weeks, I simply do not have the time.  Further, knowledge does not stand still, it is always changing and evolving.  Lifelong learning acknowledges this, one cannot know everything and the aim to do so will result in failure.  I can however aim for competence and enough knowledge to be able to discuss a wide variety of subjects.

Step 2: Create the principles which will govern the reading plan

This step is more about how I am going to read.  I will be keeping a log of my reading.  I recently began moving my catalogue onto Library Thing  (www.librarything.com) from Good Reads after they started removing some key fields.  I will be recording the books I read over there, but in addition I am going to also keep manual records.  I honestly wish I had started this years ago, as I would have liked to be able to look back over my reading history to see what I was being drawn to at particular times.  So now I will be keeping a reading journal in which I will record each book as I start it, and also to keep any notes I make on the book.  More detailed information gleaned from books I tend to file away in Obsidian.

As someone living with ME I am very conscious that I am not always able to read the deep and complicated books, so a degree of flexibility has to be included as part of any plan.  So that I do not exhaust myself I am not going to be reading more than one challenging book at a time, neither will I read two challenging books sequentially.  Remember this is a lifelong plan, so pacing yourself is key.

Following on from my three month break from buying books I am setting a principle of prioritising those books I already own, rather than buying new ones.  Where I do need to purchase books, unless it is a beautiful edition bought for aesthetic reasons, I will also be purchasing books second hand, or in an electronic format. 

Step 3: Create a list of topics you want to read about

Now we are getting to the fun bit.  There are so many topics that I want to read but I decided to focus on those areas where I have big gaps and are of immediate interest.  I have decided on a list of areas I want to focus on, but these are all areas with a good deal of overlap.

One of my biggest regrets from school was not choosing to study Classics, it is a huge gap in my knowledge.  Over the years I have become increasingly aware of how much they have impacted history, politics, science, philosophy, art and much more since the Renaissance.  I want to gain an understanding of the key works and authors.  This one topic intersects with some of my other selected areas such as politics (Plato, Cicero), history (Herodotus, Caesar, Cicero), philosophy (Aristotle, Plato, Seneca), art, plays and poetry, and even science (Aristotle, Pythagoras).

Having mentioned most of the topics already I will give the remaining two an honourable mention: classical literature and modern literature.  There are a number of key works of classic literature that I want to read.  To date I have not been a great reader of modern literature, mostly because it is becoming harder to find the gems.  Works written over a hundred years ago have the advantage of surviving the test of time and multiple generations, not so with modern literature.  So aside from some series I have already begun (Strangers & Brothers by C P Snow) I will be using the Nobel Prize for Literature as a guide to finding the best modern authors.

Step 4: Begin listing books you want to read

In Ted Gioia’s post he had a very structured approach to identifying which books he wanted to read.  His suggestion is to come up with a list of 50 books at a time and to work your way through it.  I decided to begin in a slightly different way. 

I started by reviewing the books in my library catalogue and marking those which meet the topics I want to study, so far I have 75 books.  This gives me a rough idea of the topics I have the most books on and where they might be clusters.  Aside from the poetry, plays and works of literature which can all be read in isolation, I have spotted a clear cluster of books on the brain, neuroscience, learning and psychology.  That gives me the beginnings of a plan.

A second obvious cluster is the philosophy collection, while there are any number of key texts which I want to read I have quite a lot to be getting on withs.  However I have identified that I could really do with an overview of philosophy to provide some framework.  So I have noted that down as an area to identify and purchase a book or two.

This approach works well when you have a good number of books on a topic that you are interested in.  However that isn’t always going to be the case.  History is one area where I have large gaps, both in my knowledge and the books I already have.  There is a problem however, in 2023 there is a lot of history and its getting bigger all the time.  I needed to decide what my parameters were going to be and where was a logical place to start.  I decided that I needed some overviews of the ancient civilisations which border the Mediterranean: Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia etc.  As I already own Gibbons’ Decline and Fall I decided to begin with Rome but I needed a bit more of the Rise of Rome.  I had listened to Mary Beards SPQR and enjoyed it, however I do not absorb information well via audiobook so a physical copy will need to be acquired.

Step 5: Read your list, then repeat

Start working your way through your list and when you have read all the books on your initial list, begin again.  Expand the existing topics, find new ones.  I have generally found that as I am reading I find new gaps in my knowledge, so note them down.  Use these newly identified gaps together with any ones previously identified to inform the next list of fifty books you want to read.

As you read, make notes on the book, find your own way to absorb and retain the knowledge you are acquiring.  I do best by writing notes at the end of a chapter for non-fiction books or writing a summary of the plot at the end of a fiction book.  There is a plethora of information on the best ways of learning, which can guide you, but not everyone’s mind works in the same way so experiment and find what works best for you. 

That is why I am starting with the list of books I found on the brain and how it works, I am learning how to optimise my mind to retain information and to think critically.

I hope that this post gives you some inspiration to create your own reading plan.  Happy Reading!