The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 381 - Books

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Pete.

Pete: So, one of the things I've been doing is looking at the books I read in the last year. One of the things I've been doing is thinking about what books I might read next year. And I got a little stuck. And so, I need your help in thinking about, how does one even go about selecting a book? What is your process? What is a process for choosing which books to read? This is selfishly something I want to learn off you, so strap yourself in.

Jen: I've got to tell you, this is something I want to learn off you. So, it's mutually beneficial. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So I had this moment, reading the list of books that I read. I have a little list that I keep, where I was thinking some of the books felt a little meh, I'm going to be honest with you, that I read this year. Some of them, I was like, "Oh, that was great." Some of them were a little meh. And the thought in my head is, in 2026, how do I read less meh books? And how do I read more books that I'm excited about? And I have a pile of them next to my bed, and I find myself looking at them and feeling a little uninspired. And I feel like I need to re-inspire, re-invigorate the way I think about selecting books. So, help?

Jen: Okay, Pete, this rocked my world when I heard it. So, you know, I enjoy the work of Gretchen Rubin. And she is an avid reader, and often on her podcast would complain about this responsibility she felt to every book she started, that she had to finish it, even if it was meh.

Pete: Mmm-hmm.

Jen: Which, listeners, if you could see the look on Pete's face right now, he clearly relates.

Pete: It's another Pete-gets-called-out moment, where I absolutely relate. And my wife, Tracey, does too. We talk about this often, where, gosh, I mean, there's a book I'm three-quarters of the way through right now. I won't name it. And I reckon I've been three-quarters of the way through this book for about a month. And I chew, I reckon, like I chew through one page a night. And then, I go, "Well, I'm tired, and I'm not really interested in this book, so I'm just going to go to bed." And I cannot, for some reason, just put it away and go, "I don't need to finish this, because it's clearly not exciting me or interesting me." Because what I know, when I have a book that I really am fascinated by, I can't stop reading. I'm like, "Give me more. Give me more. Give me more." And I'm having the opposite experience. But like Gretchen Rubin, I can't not finish it. Help. Is there a way to navigate that? Do we just put it down?

Jen: Okay, so I heard Gretchen say that she was instituting a rule that if she was not engaged in the book, the commitment was to stop reading it. And that is a win. That's a gold star. That's you following the rules. So, that blew my mind. But then, Pete, on a recent episode, she said that a friend of hers had been lamenting the same issue. You know, a book's meh, and I feel this responsibility. So, her friend did the math to determine how many books she likely has left to read in her lifetime.

Pete: Oh, that's so scary.

Jen: And every meh book is taking a spot on that roster. And that just completely freed her. So Gretchen Rubin was talking about this, saying that this concept was giving her freedom. And then, I listened to this. And I thought, "Wow, this concept gives me freedom, too." So, that blew my mind and made it so much easier to close the meh book.

Pete: Nice. Okay. Now, I'm listening to you say that, and now I feel like I have permission. I'm sure (I mean, you could work it out) there would be a smaller number than you would like to admit of books we have left. And there's an almost infinite amount of books one could read. But one has to be selective, based on how many we actually can read. Okay, I like that. I like that. Now, hearing you talk about this reminded me of someone else that we like to follow and read, which is Seth Godin. Because his process for reading books, I've always loved and envied, but I'm unable to instigate. But I want to share it anyway, which was essentially, he reads the book until he gets the punchline. And then, he stops reading. Because he's like, "I got the punchline." And what I know about so many nonfiction books is, if you're really honest with yourself, you can get the punchline in the first third of the book. And that often, the second third of the book is like examples or research or justifications for the punchline. But if you're already like, "I believe you. I trust you. I trust that you've done well-constructed research. I got the punchline. I can put the book down." And Seth, as a result, reads, I mean, like hundreds of books a year, because he reads to the punchline. And I just think it's an aspirational way of thinking about reading.

Jen: Wow, that's so funny. That's making me think of this book that I was recommended by our mutual friend, Kirsty Stark. And well, I'm going to say the title because I think everyone should get a copy and put it on their shelf, so they're reminded of the title even though you don't even have to open the book to get the punchline. The title of the book is "Who, Not How".

Pete: I knew you were going to say that. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Jen: You don't even need to read it. The punchline is, when you hear yourself saying, "How am I going to do this," instead, ask yourself, "Who could help me do this?" And just keeping that title on your shelf will remind you of the punchline.

Pete: That is so true. Yeah, I'm thinking about the amount of people I've recommended that book to, and I say some version of the same thing. You actually don't need to read it. You just need to read the title or the first chapter. And they make the case for asking for help when you need it, as opposed to trying to do everything yourself. And you're like, "Great. Okay, I get that. Now, I should go and do that, as opposed to keep reading this book."

Jen: That's right.

Pete: Okay. So, these are good ways of thinking about finishing books. What about your process for selecting books? Do you have a process for selecting books? Whatever you find in a bookshop one day? I don't know. How do you even think about selecting books?

Jen: I don't know if I'd call this a process, but what I have found is that there are certain podcasts that I listen to that lead me to the next book I'm going to read. Because they tend to interview authors, so I get to hear the author basically do a primer on the book. And then, if I like it, I'll go buy it. So, definitely the "Getting To Yes, And" podcast is one that has been super helpful in finding books. The other one is "Hidden Brain". But a lot of the podcasts I listen to, they rhyme with the kinds of books that I read. I keep a list on my Things app. So, I tend to batch buy my books. It's very hard for me to buy one book, because I go to the list and I'm like, "Oh, I need a new book. Oh, I guess I need ten new books."

Pete: Oh my god, I so relate to this. She says with a guilty grin of like, "I just went to buy one book and I walked out with seven more." I went into a bookshop yesterday to buy a present for someone else and I walked out with five books, of which four are for me. Four of them are for me and one is a present. So, I get this. I relate to this so much.

Jen: Relatable. Okay, I have two more ways that I find my books. And I should say, these are my nonfiction books that I'm talking about. So I tend to write in my books, which is why I like to own them instead of borrow them from the library. I like to borrow my fiction and own my nonfiction.

Pete: I just love that some people, right now, are recoiling at the very thought of putting a pen to paper in a book.

Jen: I love doing it. I love it.

Pete: I can do it. I get it.

Jen: In every book I read, there are quotations and citations. And if something in quotes or something that is cited interests me, I circle it. And then, when I'm done with the book, I'll go back and look at the things that I circled and do a little googling to see if there is a book related to the circled thing that I might like to buy. So, it's sort of like the family tree of thinking.

Pete: Ooh, I like that. Yeah, this is reminding me of something I heard...oh, I cannot recall who said it. This is a problem with listening to too many podcasts. But I heard someone say one of their favorite ways to find books is to go to the biographies or the autobiographies of the thinkers they really admire. And the example, from memory, they used was Charlie Munger. And what they do is they then look for, "Who were the authors that influenced Charlie Munger?" And you can find these in the biographies or the autobiographies or transcripts of conversations these famous people have had, where they go, "Oh, the work of such and such really inspired all of the mental models that I now have." And he talks about, what you realize is all of the wisdom that we attribute to the person that we admire is usually just borrowed from the person that they admire. And then, the person that they admire, it's probably borrowed from them. And there's a recent example of this I heard, listening to Mel Robbins talk about her new book, "Let Them"...which I haven't read, full disclaimer, but I've heard her talk about it. And she very openly shares that the concept and the philosophy behind it, if you go back to the sources that she read, is like, oh, it's from Buddhism and it's from Stoicism and there's Marcus Aurelius and there are elements of Seneca. And it's one thing to look at Mel Robbins and go, "Wow, she has all these amazing, unique ideas." But if you look at the books or the authors or the speakers or the thinkers that inspired her, you can actually go right down this rabbit hole, almost to the source, the original source, which I find an interesting way to think about picking and reading books.

Jen: Can we also give a shout out to Mel Robbins? Because every single one of her books, the punchline is in the title.

Pete: My god, a brilliant example. It's so true.

Jen: So good.

Pete: So true, yeah. "Let me take like thousands of years worth of stoic philosophy, which is sort of notorious for being hard to read." (You talk about chewing on some of those old translated stoic texts.) "And let me just turn it into two words. We just distilled, you know, thousands of years of writing and wisdom into two words. No worries." Thank you, Mel Robbins.

Jen: So amazing. Well done, Mel Robbins. Well done. Okay. The other thing, Pete, that I do in order to find books, is go to my favorite independently-owned bookstore. Because there is something about the way they lay out the books. It's not like going to one of the huge chain bookstores, even though I'm very glad those still exist. And I read recently that one of our biggest chain bookstores here in the States is about to open all these new locations, which I can't believe in this digital age. That makes me so happy.

Pete: I thought you were going to say the opposite. They're going into receivership because no one goes to bookshops anymore.

Jen: No, I guess people are going back to the hard copy.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: But my favorite independent bookstore, which is in Nantucket, it's called Nantucket Bookworks. It's so aesthetically pleasing to go book shopping there that I could spend hours, because the way it is arranged is so tantalizing. And they don't always separate fiction and nonfiction. There's a section of the store where there's sort of this potpourri of different kinds of books. And then, everything else is arranged by category. But there's this one section that I just love going to, because I get to see all these things that I may not have actually been looking for.

Pete: I love that. I agree with you, with the bookshop. The experience of walking into a great bookshop, like the example yesterday, I literally went in to buy one book. And I was so taken by following my nose, and seeing different titles, and the way that they lay them out. And the thing I love about those independent bookshops is when they have the little handwritten card, which is like, "Sue, who works here, recommends this book as a comprehensive guide." And I'm just like, "Oh, Sue, I think I like this book now as well, because of your recommendation." I like reading what they recommend and how they lay it out. I absolutely agree with you. There's something tangible about touching and feeling and smelling a bookshop, where you can literally follow your nose and your eyes. So, I agree with that. I like that. I like that. I guess we have a similar process at the podcast thing, too. I mean, I kind of started this podcast thinking I don't have a process. But I do have the experience where, I like guest interview podcasts because they are spruiking a book they've written themselves, and you get a little taster. You get the best bits. Or often, a lot of the podcasts that I listen to, they interview people and they say like, "What are the books that have influenced you?" And they kind of do that version of what I described earlier, like, "These are the books that have influenced me and the people that have influenced them." So, I guess I do that. What I'm realizing is, for some reason, I've fallen off the habit of writing those down anywhere. I don't have a list of books to buy or books to read next. And so, I find myself walking up to a pile of unread books in my office or next to my bed and going, "I don't know, I guess I'll read this one now." And then, because I'm so stubborn, I get halfway through and go, "Well, this wasn't the right book for me to choose. But I'm halfway through, so I've got to keep going. Got to keep going." So I feel like I need to commit, in 2026, to being more intentional, even ruthless about which books I choose, and maybe more intentional and ruthless about how and where I source them from.

Jen: Okay, while we're setting intentions for reading in 2026, I'll share that we just had our apartment repainted. And because of that, we had to take out every single book. And you've been in my apartment, Pete, you know how many books we have. We had to take every single book out.

Pete: Oh my god.

Jen: So as we were putting all of the books back, I found a couple that had been sitting on the shelves unread for years. And so, those got donated to the book donation spot in our basement.

Pete: Well done.

Jen: But then, I also found a couple books that had been sitting on the shelves for years that I had forgotten were there and I really had wanted to read them. So those are going to be the first books that I read in 2026, the ones I bought a while ago and have been meaning to read ever since.

Pete: Nice. Okay, I love this idea of looking at the books in your bookshelf that have been sitting there for years. I know for a fact I have a handful, at least, where I look at them and go, "I have an intention of reading that book one day." And I'm like, "How many years have you been saying that, Pete?" I feel like this is true of getting it three-quarters of the way through a book, just as much as it's true of buying the book and thinking you're going to read it one day. There's an opportunity cost situation there, where you're unwilling to part ways with a book because you've gone to so much effort of getting three-quarters of the way through, and it's just a little bit more effort to finish it. Or you've gone to so much effort of finding the book and buying the book and putting it on your shelf, that it's just a little bit more effort to start reading it. But there's a framing of opportunity cost, which is, if it's a gift to yourself right now today, you then get to decide whether you finish the book, keep the book, donate the book, or stop reading the book. So, I guess this comes back to opportunity cost for me and how I'm using my time.

Jen: Okay, one final thought from me, Pete, is as we were putting the books back on the shelf, my husband...who is maybe even more in love with books than I am. He is a voracious reader and loves to just stare at his books. He will just get lost in the middle distance, staring at his books. But as we were putting the books back on the shelf, he said something I'd never heard him say before. He held up a book and he said, "I think this book is bringing bad energy onto this shelf. I think we need to get rid of this one."

Pete: Oh my god.

Jen: And I was like, "Woah." There was something about the author that he just found sort of distasteful. So, we let that one go. And I really had never considered the energy the books were bringing before. And to be clear, my husband has never really mentioned energy to me before. So, this was definitely out of left field. But I was like, "Oh, what a useful way to think about your books. Like, do I want to look at this and have these feelings in my bookshelves?"

Pete: Right. It's like the Marie Kondo of it all. Does this book spark joy? Does this author spark joy? Or is this just taking up room and giving bad energy? Alright, I like that, Mark. Nice wisdom. So, okay. This feels timely. This feels inspiring. I feel like I want to look at my bookshelf. I don't know if I'm going to take every single book down. That feels like a big job.

Jen: Don't do it. It's so hard to put them back.

Pete: I've definitely got to scan my bookshelf and think about, which of them have I not read that I might want to read? Which of them have I not read that I'm not going to read and I could donate? Are there books on there that are not sparking joy? And then, to start to get intentional about, you know, even just taking screenshots (which I used to do) when I hear a podcast interview recommend a book. And then, actually going back to find them, so that I spend less time chewing on books and more time voraciously reading books in 2026.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.