
Can Reading Make You Happier? | the New Yorker

A letter from author Anne Lamott on the value of reading:
“If you love to read, or learn to love reading, you will have an amazing life. Period. Life will always have hardships, pressure, and incredibly annoying people, but books will make it all worthwhile. In books, you will find your North Star, and you will find you, which is why you are here.
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“If you love to read, or learn to love reading, you will have an amazing life. Period. Life will always have hardships, pressure, and incredibly annoying people, but books will make it all worthwhile. In books, you will find your North Star, and you will find you, which is why you are here.
B... See more
James Clear • 3-2-1: On the paradox of focus, criticism, and the value of reading
Writer and activist James Baldwin on the power of reading:
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.... See more
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.... See more
James Clear • 3-2-1: How to time travel, the power of reading, and being grateful when you don't have what you want

My first recommendation would be fiction. Reading fiction is important to understand the cross-sectional variation in humanity, to understand how difficult generalizations can be, to just get a sense of how different social pieces fit together, and to get a sense of different historical eras – and plus, reading fiction is often just plain flat-out ... See more