In his book “Time Drive,” Gleb Arhangelsky recommends that you read at leas one serious book a week and that you buy five (5) times the number of books you plan to read. For those who plan to read a book a week and are buying for the month, that means buying 20 books. As an author, reader, and book hoard… er, collector, I am totally on board with this. However, beyond my monetary and intuitive biases, there are some good reasons to follow this tip from Arhangelsky.

I WANT MY FREEDOM!

Choosing between books is one of the pleasures and pains of reading. However, every reader will tell you that it’s important to be able to choose what book you’re going to read rather than having to read whatever is available. If you don’t want to “Moby Dick” and it’s the only thing on the shelf, you’re not going to like it. Remember back to your high school English classes where you were required to read certain books and you disliked them all. If you’ve ever read one of them because you wanted to, you know how much more enjoyable it was.

That Gut Feeling

Chances are there’s a reason you want to read a certain book at a certain time. The Greeks call it “kairos” – a convenient time and convenient circumstances. Some books just aren’t going to grab when you pick them up the first time, but when a certain book wants to be read, you’ll have nothing stand in your way to get it done. Following your gut means being able to choose among a list of contenders.

Building on a Theme

When you have several different books to choose from, you can build on the theme for the day or the week. With numerous books on the shelf waiting for you to read, you don’t have to worry about not being able to explore a topic, especially if you’ve chosen the right books.

Choosing Which Books

What should this purchase look like? You want to choose a diverse number of serious books that will allow you to exercise your brain. Detective stories and romances are generally out because they won’t make you think, but that doesn’t mean fiction is all the way out. Fiction allows you to exercise your imagination and can show you possibilities. Choose something that you don’t normally read for fun. Non-fiction is great.

Indie Books

Of course, I would suggest picking up any of my books, but specifically those on how to be more creative: “Disneyland Is Creativity,” “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity,” and “Penguinate! Positive Creativity,’ which has suggestions for putting into practice the creative principles discussed. If you’re looking for adult fiction that’s off the beaten path, Darren Lamb has some amazing books. Drue M. Scott is also good if you’re looking for adult reading with a different world view. There are a lot of good indie authors who are writing interesting and unique books that can get you out of a reading rut. Follow this blog and hopefully you’ll find some! (We do book-related posts on Fridays and have several reviews already under the “books” tag.)