New Isn’t Always Better
In 2015, I read over 100 books, most of which came out in 2015.
I started noticing something disturbing.
Most of them were saying the same thing.
Now, I don’t mean they were carbon copies of each other. I mean they stayed in the same boundaries.
Consider that most of them had:
- Come from the same few publishers.
- Had authors that had similar experiences (“Educated,” upper middle class)
- Even a few had used the same sources.
I realized I didn’t read 100 different books. I read the same ten books written ten different ways each.
The philosopher Schopenhauer wrote this:
It is because people will only read what is the newest instead of what is the best of all ages, that writers remain in the narrow circle of prevailing ideas, and that the age sinks deeper and deeper in its own mire.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 