10 Benefits of Reading a Book Yourself—Even if You've Read a Dozen Summaries of It

There are a lot of books that fall into the category of "I've heard so much about it I feel like I've read it—but haven't".

I always opt to go read those books myself, even if it's embarrassing to be "late" to reading them firsthand. Here are 10 benefits I get from doing so:

1. Pull out my own relevant quotes.

2. Compile my own takeaways & insights.

3. Have my own conversation with the author's point of view.

4. Follow my own rabbit holes of resources mentioned in the book.

5. Identify stories & examples that resonate with me—that might be fluff for someone else.

6. Capture turns of phrase or formatting I might want to use in my own writing later on.

7. See the visuals used in the book that may be absent from a summary.

8. Hear bonus material included in some audiobooks that's absent in the hard copy or summaries.

9. Decide for myself if a book is worth its designation as "The best book about X topic"

10. Decide for myself if it's really worth reading at all at the moment.

Aida Alston