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Does Reading Make You Smarter? Potentially.
Published about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Does Reading Make You Smarter?
Hello Reader,
Here’s a question: Do books make you smarter? Will reading Shakespeare or Robert Sapolsky’s latest deep dive into neurobiology improve your intelligence? Or are we just reading to massage our egos?
Books have the potential to make you smarter, but your IQ doesn’t ratchet up just because you read one. Access to information isn’t the same as using information—and it’s in the usingthat real learning happens. We’ve been convinced that the goal is to read hundreds of books a year, leaving little to no time to apply what we’ve learned. Apparently, our job is to “get through” that TBR list as fast as possible. But how can we expect to get anything from our books if we don’t marinate in them for a while? 🛁
Okay, that’s not the most pleasant image, but you get the point.
THE PROBLEM
First off, incentives matter. These days, we’re more incentivized to buy books with the prettiest covers than to pull up a chair and study them. And while I love these beautiful covers (really, I do), we’ve created a new dilemma: book collecting vs. book reading. Walking into a bookstore is a magical experience—cozy aesthetics, dramatic artwork, and gold-gilded pages that feel too pretty to crack open. And that’s a problem. We need to shift our incentives. Books should be a source of knowledge and enjoyment, not just decoration.
Second, we’re drowning in decision fatigue. There was a time when a good education meant reading a small library of essential books—because that’s all that was available. Now, with the publishing industry in full gear (and seemingly everyone writing a novel, including yours truly 👋), we’re bombarded with choices. The result? We freeze. Have you ever walked into a bookstore, eager to spend your hard-earned money, only to feel so overwhelmed that the books blend into a homogeneous pool of paper? I feel this all the time—and inevitably, I buy books I know I’ll never read.
THE SOLUTION
Here’s a quick example of how I’m trying to approach reading differently.
I’ve read Macbeth a few times in my life. Each time, I got the gist of the story. Great. But now, I’m in a Shakespeare course at my local college, and we were recently assigned a deep study of Macbeth—specifically, a character study on how Lady Macbeth has been portrayed throughout history.
I went all in. After reading the play, I watched multiple film adaptations and three different stage productions on YouTube. I collected and analyzed twenty different literary critiques including articles from The Royal Shakespeare Company productions. Then, I wrote my essay. Almost twenty hours of work later, I sat back, exhausted—and fainted.
Okay, I didn’t faint. But it was a lot.
And you know what I learned? That Macbeth is nothing more than a story—until you put in the work. And when you do, something changes. You change. The structure of your brain shifts. Your ability to think critically improves. The knowledge becomes yours. Macbeth isn’t just a story about a guy's murderous rise to the top - it's a story that can help you with your own greed, ambition, and values.
(Don’t worry, folks. I’m not about to start acting like Macbeth or his wife.)
SO, DO BOOKS MAKE YOU SMARTER? POTENTIALLY.
Books have the potential to make you smarter. They have the potential to change your brain. They have the potential to make you a more interesting person.
They have the potential...
Until next time, read slowly – take notes – apply the ideas.
-Eddy
👋 Until next time, read slowly – take notes – apply the ideas.
-Eddy
New This Week:
This Month's Book Recommendation
1984 by George Orwell
Listen to the Podcast
Is Classic Literature Worth Reading? | EP 92
Watch the Show
Shakespeare's SECRET to Becoming a Better Reader
What's New at Edgewater Bookstore
See What's New for March 2025
March's Book Recommendation
1984 by George Orwell
My book recommendation for March is George Orwell's 1984. If you haven't read it yet, here's a quick lesson from the book that may inspire you to give it a try: In 1984, the Party doesn’t just control people—it owns their minds. And it does this through fear. Not just the fear of punishment, but something more insidious: the fear of thinking the wrong thing.
Take Winston. At first, he’s rebellious in small ways—keeping a diary, questioning the Party. But fear is always there, lurking. He knows Thoughtcrime isn’t just about actions; it’s about ideas. Even an unspoken doubt, a fleeting moment of skepticism, is enough to destroy him. That’s the genius of the Party’s control: it forces people to police their own thoughts.
This is Orwell’s warning: fear doesn’t just silence people. It reshapes reality. It forces you to accept lies because the alternative is unbearable. When fear rules, truth dies.
So what’s the takeaway? If you want to think for yourself, you have to resist fear. You have to be willing to sit with discomfort, to face hard truths, to stand by your beliefs even when it’s easier to surrender. Because the moment fear dictates your thoughts, you’re not thinking at all. And that’s exactly what the Party wants.
In this episode, I talk about why classic literature is still worth reading, even in our busy lives. These books have lasted the test of time for a reason. They offer rich insights into the human experience, and I’ll show you how reading a novel like Jane Eyre can help you see life from new perspectives. You’ll find that classic literature is not just for scholars—it’s for anyone who wants to understand themselves and the world better.
Shakespeare’s Henry V opens with an unusual request: The Chorus begs the audience to use their imagination because the play can’t capture the full scale of the story. That’s Shakespeare admitting something every reader should remember—fiction alone isn’t enough. In this episode, I explore why even the greatest writer of all time asked his audience to fill in the gaps and why doing the same will make your reading sessions far more rewarding.
This month, I'm focusing on the dangers of "Group Think." The goal is to recognize when we're swept away with the crowd and to hit pause and think before we act.
Feel free to respond to this email. Let me know how I can make your experience in our reading community better, or if you have questions, I'm all ears.
As always, read slowly - take notes - apply the ideas.
-Eddy
Got Questions?
Reply to this email with your questions. I respond to each and sometimes make a podcast or video to answer your bookish questions.
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Subscribe to my newsletter for tips on close reading, detailed note-taking, and applying bookish wisdom to your life. I talk about fiction and non-fiction, interview literary experts, and host The Read Well Podcast. Subscribe today and build better reading habits.