Newsletter Week 33 | 2021

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Hey there.I hope you've had a great week.

What I've Made For You

New article: How I Read Research Papers with Obsidian and ZoteroLearn how I import papers I've read in Zotero into Obsidian with QuickAdd and Citations. This workflow is mostly automatic, and completely customizable.

Twitter thread: Takeaways from David Perell's new Write of Passage podcastThe episodes are short, but brimming with insights and ideas that help you become a better writer.

What You Should Read

Read the old books. The battle-tested books. The books that stood the test of time.

You'll want to read broadly. That's how you find those connections that are worth everything.

Find the cannon books in your field and start there. If you are studying Biology, you should start by reading On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, for example.

Read what the people you respect read. Not simply what everyone else reads. Find people whose recommendations you trust and read those.

Read books that intimidate you. Eventually, you want to get to the point where no book in a library intimidates you.

After you've read a book that you liked, a good way of finding more books to read is to search in the bibliography / references. Go to the source.

Seek to challenge Confirmation Bias. Seek opposing viewpoints - and force yourself to explain them as well as those who hold them (or better).

Don't be afraid to discard a book if it does not serve you. Never feel obligated to finish a book. There are too many books to every finish. You'll only read a handful in your lifetime. Don't let that handful be books that you didn't really want to read.These are ways to select good books. If you read purely for pleasure, that's fine. Reading what you just enjoy is a great way to keep the habit - and it's a good habit to have. This is just what I wish I was told when I started reading.

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To your success. Regards, 

Christian Bager Bach Houmann