When it comes to learning, I have always been driven by two competing instincts. My curiosity pulls me to constantly explore new things and my desire to understand pushes me to dive deeply into subjects. This has manifested itself as two distinct styles of self study: one slow and methodical and the other fast and frenetic. Now, I am beginning a new endeavor to balance these instincts and develop a new breadth of knowledge. To explore many different fields, not becoming an expert but establishing a foothold. I invite you to come along with me on this journey.
I have always had a natural inclination towards curiosity versus focusing in on specific, specialized topics. When I was a child I devoured non-fiction books on a wide array of subjects. In school, I pursued a meandering path, taking a much wider array of coursework than necessary to graduate. These included courses in business law, history, advertising, ecology, and medieval Germanic literature, among many others. Outside of class I spent many hours in the university library touring the shelves and reading what caught my eye.
After I graduated, I began to expand my self study routine (as I have written about before) into a dedicated practice. Physics was my first target. I poured several hundred hours into the book “University Physics with Modern Physics” by Young and Freedman. I studied diligently: reading carefully, taking notes, watching lectures, doing exercises. Much as if I had been enrolled in a course. Several similar efforts followed with other math and physics textbooks: vibrations and waves, classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, functional analysis, measure theory, and so on. I tend to think of these structured, months-long study efforts as my deep dives.
In parallel to these dedicated efforts, I continued to read more general non-fiction books and to increase my collection of textbooks which I would peruse. These encompassed a much wider array of topics but my attention was spread much thinner. Many dozens of textbooks decorate my shelves, each of which I have only spent a few hours lightly exploring. I might read the preface or an interesting excerpt—and possibly just skim the pictures. This type of wandering is more like a form of subject snacking, giving a nice taste but rarely constituting a full meal.
In some ways, the system seemed complete: My deep dives gave me depth and built up a durable core of skills while my subject snacking appeased my curiosity and gave me enjoyment in the moment. I can genuinely say that I have an understanding of some core physics topics due to my focused study efforts. Likewise, there are a number of things that I had no idea existed but now know a fact or two about from my casual exploration. Not to mention, well-written popular non-fiction can be genuinely entertaining.
However, there are some aspects that leave me feeling unfulfilled. On the one hand, deep dives are time consuming and tiring. To complete a textbook in this way takes months in the best case (my physics journey lasted well over a year while studying several hours a day). With the demands of a full time job and other commitments, it is difficult to find the time for that kind of effort. As a result, the list of topics I would love to deep dive on grows much faster than I can progress through it, leaving me unsatisfied. On the other hand, my lighter meandering is so scattered that there is no possibility of progression. Even if the many pieces come together to mean I am advancing in aggregate, I have no sense of it in the moment.
Against this backdrop, a new way of engaging with material has begun to crystallize for me. The idea is to take a textbook and read it essentially cover to cover but to not take notes and not worry about exercises. I am not holding my self to the same level of rigor as if I were taking a course. I’m reading it like a more general non-fiction book. The focus is on taking away themes, ways of thinking, and core ideas rather than every specific detail. Reading in this way let’s me progress through material quickly while still retaining value and having the sense of progression.
The effort began unintentionally. I was so sucked into the book “Introduction to Behavioural Ecology” by Davies that I just had to keep reading it. Focusing my attention on it (as opposed to my normal habit of reaching for something new every day) let me progress fairly rapidly, especially considering how busy my life schedule normally is. When I finished it I decided to repeat the effort, to see if I could, by reading “Astrobiology” by Cockell in the same manner. That was also a success and I am now moving on to my third book in the effort: “Introducing Sociolinguistics” by Meyerhoff.
At this point, I recognized that I was on to something real, something that worked, and something with some sticking power (I am notoriously short-lived in my various endeavors). The feeling was reminiscent of when I realized that this whole logging of my self-study hours thing was helpful and going to stick around for a while.
What makes a book a good fit for this category? First of all, it needs to be interesting. That is to say, it has to be something I want to learn about for its own sake not just something I need to learn for work or some other functional purpose, although it could give functional value as well. The book “Understanding Semiconductors” by Corey Richards comes to mind as a possible gray area: it is decidedly functional for my job but it is also something I am interested in. Second, the book needs to be approachable, meaning that someone can access it without necessarily having taken a lot of prerequisite material. Introductory textbooks are well within this category. Finally, it must be readable. This means that I should be able to progress through it without having to employ the intensive study methods such as careful notes, extensive rereading, and diligent solving of the exercises. A counter-example might be high level math textbooks, where one can only move ahead one or two chapters without such intensive methods before the material becomes impenetrable.
Thinking of it in this way, I began to plan for it as an ongoing effort. I cultivated a list of future books (my so-called “Interesting Books List”) filled with textbooks in a broad variety of subjects that I felt could fit this category and this effort. My initial search turned up about sixteen of these books and ongoing additions have brought the total closer to forty. At an average pace of one book every one to two months, I have more than enough material to last for many years. The process of finding and adding books to the list could be a hobby in and of itself.
With the endeavor already well underway, it is up to the blog to play catch up. I will be writing posts detailing the two books I have already completed and the one that is currently underway. From there, I will be able to write more contemporaneously with my reading. I hope this project inspires others to explore outside their usual intellectual comfort zones. You don’t have to master a field to get something valuable from it. Sometimes, just opening the right book can reshape how you see the world.