{"id":7085,"date":"2017-05-22T04:45:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T09:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/?p=7085"},"modified":"2017-05-22T04:45:21","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T09:45:21","slug":"in-defense-of-old-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/in-defense-of-old-books\/","title":{"rendered":"How Reading Old Books Gives Us New Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One trait common to leaders is a passion for books. Reading improves our thinking, people skills, and <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/science-readers-leaders.html\">more<\/a>. Leveraging a library of history, biography, philosophy, business, and psychology can give leaders a competitive advantage. But there\u2019s a hidden bias working against us.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nWe live in a culture that places a premium on things that are new. Discontent, if not a virtue, is certainly a way of life. Understanding this, marketers highlight \u201cnewness\u201d as a primary attribute of their products, assuming that this equates to better.<!--more--><br \/>\n<br \/>\nThe implication is three-fold:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New is more valuable than old.<\/li>\n<li>New is more relevant than old.<\/li>\n<li>New is more accurate than old.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The book industry plays along. For as long as I can remember, there\u2019s been a relentless focus on the new. Reporters, reviewers, podcasters, and bloggers mostly cover fresh voices and the latest releases. And bookstores dedicate less and less space for what the trade calls backlist\u2014titles more than a year old.<br \/>\nIn fact, booksellers typically give up on new books after sixty to ninety days and ship the unsold ones back to the publisher. Why? To make room on the shelves for the avalanche of still newer books in the pipeline\u2014about a million every year.<br \/>\nThere are some signs this is changing. User-directed sites like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/\">Goodreads<\/a> promote old books along with the new. And anyone can now locate obscure, out-of-print books in a few clicks through Amazon, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abebooks.com\/\">AbeBooks<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/\">Project Gutenberg<\/a>.<br \/>\nBut why read old books in the first place?<\/p>\n<h3>Out with the New<\/h3>\n<p>The bias toward new books goes back a long time. C.S. Lewis addressed it in an <a href=\"http:\/\/silouanthompson.net\/library\/early-church\/on-the-incarnation\/introduction\/\">introduction<\/a> to a translation of St. Athanasius\u2019s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.com\/1537586319\/?tag=mhyatt-20\">On the Incarnation<\/a><\/em> back in 1944.<br \/>\n\u201cThere is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books,\u201d he began the essay.<br \/>\nLewis wasn\u2019t calling for a boycott of new books but for a more balanced approach to what we read. \u201cI myself am a writer, [and] I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cBut if he must read only the new or the old, I would advise him to read the old.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>3 Reasons to Read the Old Books<\/h3>\n<p>Lewis gave three reasons why we ought to read old books, especially the classics. Lewis\u2019s focus in an introduction to a book about the Incarnation, was theology. But the point applies more broadly as well.<\/p>\n<h4>1. Old Books Have Been Tested<\/h4>\n<p>A new book has yet to be proven by the test of time. Its ideas are still on trial and non-specialists may be in no position to judge it.<br \/>\nOver time, if a book has any staying power \u201call its implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) [are] brought to light.\u201d Old books that have not been forgotten have been remembered for a reason. Something about them stands up and demands our attention.<\/p>\n<h4>2. Old Books Give Us Context<\/h4>\n<p>Lewis compares reading a new book to stepping into the middle of a conversation. People may be in the middle of a debate about a point made earlier in the conversation. Or perhaps they are laughing and making asides.<br \/>\nYou the reader have little idea what is being said, because you missed the beginning of the conversation. Reading the old books lets you understand the whole conversation.<\/p>\n<h4>3. Old Books Remove Our Blinders<\/h4>\n<p>Every era has its own particular outlook, which is good at seeing certain truths and blind to others. Contemporary writers who seem to oppose one another share many of the same unspoken assumptions.<br \/>\nNone of us can fully escape this blindness, but the cataracts get a lot worse if we read only new books.<br \/>\n\u201cThe only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books,\u201d Lewis explained.<br \/>\nThe perspective that reading old books can give us is important not because our ancestors always got it right, but because they saw things we might easily miss, and wrote these things down for our benefit.<br \/>\n\u201cTwo heads,\u201d said Lewis, \u201care better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.\u201d In this sense, Lewis says quite humorously, books from the future would be just as good a corrective as books from the past, but, unfortunately, they are more difficult to obtain.<\/p>\n<h3>A Simple Rule to Counteract the Bias<\/h3>\n<p>In the final analysis, Lewis is a realist. He concedes that his readers will not likely confine themselves exclusively to old books. (And it\u2019s a good thing for those of us who make our living publishing new ones!)<br \/>\nHe compromised by saying, \u201cIt is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one until you have read an old one in between.\u201d<br \/>\n\t\t<aside class=\"tweetable tweetalign_center\" style=\"width:100%\">\n\t\t\t<blockquote>\n\t\t\t\tYou missed the beginning of the conversation. Reading old books gives you context.<cite>Michael Hyatt<\/cite>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\t\t\t<ul class=\"actions\">\n\t\t\t\t<li class=\"icon-arrow\"><a class=\"icon-twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?source=tweetbutton&text=You%20missed%20the%20beginning%20of%20the%20conversation.%20Reading%20old%20books%20gives%20you%20context.%20https%3A%2F%2Ffullfocus.co%2F%3Fp%3D7085&via=michaelhyatt\" title=\"Share Quote on Twitter\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet<span> Quote<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/aside><br \/>\n<div class=\"reminder\">What old book has meant the most to you?<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If we must choose between old books and new ones, we should <em>always<\/em> select an old one. C.S. Lewis provides three reasons why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":36538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[616,617,618,619,620,621],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Reading Old Books Gives Us New Perspective<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If we must choose between old books and new ones, we should always select an old one. C.S. 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