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At some point this year (2022), I will read my 2,000th book.  I thought I'd revisit a post I made years ago regarding my 1,000 book milestone.

On September 10, 2010, I read my 1,000th book.  I started counting books I completed in 1987 so it took a little over 20 years to reach my 1,000th book.

Upon reaching the milestone of reading 1000 books, it seems appropriate to reflect on what I have learned as a result of all that reading.  The temptation is to enumerate a list of facts or insights gained from individual books.  Doing this might be a worthwhile project but would be a book unto itself and might not yield any insights to other readers.  Instead, I want to reflect on a few general points. 

​You can’t read every book.  You can’t retain everything you read.  Given these facts what counts as being well-read?  It’s an interesting question to consider in a world where more and more books are being published every year thus making the goal of keeping up with knowledge nearly impossible.  Even if you choose to specialize in one discipline, being well-read in that discipline is extremely difficult.  But, is there a way to attain a level of general knowledge that is both achievable and useful?  And, what are the benefits of such knowledge?

There are many ways to learn.  However, I think books are one of the best.  Having read over 1,200 books I would say that!  Of course, there is more to learning any subject than reading but, I think there are still many tangible benefits to reading books and I would like to outline some of those here.