On Chasing Books

“Chasing makes you more active and critical of what you read. This helps you learn more. As Hanson writes, ‘search-readers often don’t have a good mental place to put each thing they learn. [...] Chasers, in contrast, always have specific mental places they are trying to fill with what they read, so they better integrate new things they learn with old things they know.’ When you chase, you continually ask yourself whether what you are reading ‘is relevant for your quest, or whether the author actually has anything new or interesting to say.’ This means you drop books that don’t advance your understanding about the questions that matter to you, so you can find the books that do answer them and transform your thinking.”

Henrik Karlsson, “How I Read” - https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/how-i-read. Most of my reading follows this pattern. I read to chase ideas, solve problems and attach ideas to mental furniture I have built up over decades. It’s also important to note that the books I tend to read are also written along these lines. As Karlsson concludes, “Good books are compressed thoughts… that someone spent two years thinking.” My own research writing similarly calls for slow reading by those interested in similar problems. Slow reading like slow food is worth the effort, and good philosophy should feel like taking in the complexity of a rich mole sauce.