Books Challenge Your Critical Thinking If You Choose The Right Ones
Fiction and non-fiction books can trigger it
Asking yourself what to read, why you want to read certain things and not others, and how you are going to read those books are three critical thinking questions to analyze the content you consume.
Let’s talk about books, but not any kind of books. Let’s talk about the books that challenge your brain in different ways. In order to do that, I invite you to do a little exercise with me. I want you to think about the books you read last year and ask yourself the reasons you read them and how you read them. By answering all those questions you will also realize how those books helped you.
What did you read and what moved you to read those specific books?
On a document of a sort, write the name of the books you read in one column. Next to their names write the reason/s that moved you to read those books and not others. In a third column write why you read them and in the last column write how you read them. As always let’s create awareness first.
What to consider when thinking about the fiction you read. You read those books because you were moved by:
- Your necessity to impress your friends
- Your necessity to follow the fads
- Your curiosity about other people’s opinions on books
- Your personal interest in a specific genre
What to consider if you read non-fiction. You read those books because you were moved by:
- A future pay rise or job promotion
- Learning more about a new trend
- The necessity to impress someone with new skills
- The need to explore new hobbies
- Your curiosity about other people’s opinions on certain books
Why did you want to read them?
In this section I want you to write down why you really read those books at a personal level. This is a tricky one because it’s similar to the previous exercise, but in this case, I want you to go a little bit deeper.
If you read fiction, you read because:
- You wanted to forget about your daily problems
- That’s what people said you should do
- You were looking for some kind of answers
- You wanted to learn something new that you can explore in your own writing
If you read non-fiction, you read because:
- You had to, you needed to read for your work
- You were recommended certain readings for personal growth
- You were looking for reliable data for your personal research
- You were curious about historical facts, biographies, cultural movements, art, business, etc…
How did you read those books?
Whether you read fiction or non-fiction, we tend to have different ways of approaching and, therefore, making the most of a book.
Did you read your books?
- With no further intention other than just reading
- Underlining ideas, expressions, and important vocabulary
- Writing on the margins with your pencil
- Journaling ideas on a separate piece of paper
- Dedicating some time every day
- Slowly enjoying every word
- More like in a rush to see how much I can read in one day
- Stopping and chewing the best phrases
What have you learned?
Are you surprised with your answers? Did you read for the right reasons last year? Have you seen a pattern? What does that pattern tell you? Have your interests changed this year? What are you going to do about it?
All these are questions that will help you be more intentional with what you read in the future, but they will also contribute to creating awareness regarding how much you learned from last year’s readings.
I don’t know if you have realized this, but this exercise will also make you go back to those books and flick through the pages, re-read some fragments and remember what it was that you liked or not from them? Did you miss anything? Has your opinion regarding those books changed since the last time you read them?
There are a lot of questions here that you might or might not have thought about. In any case, I would love to hear about your experience, so why don’t you let me know your thoughts? What have you learned from this exercise?
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