How to read all the books in the world?

Have you ever wondered how many books are out there in the world?

I found out that there are approximately 130 million books globally—and counting! As a non-voracious reader, I often find myself overwhelmed with the fear of missing out (FOMO) on all the amazing books that exist.

The Impossible Task of Reading All the Books

Let’s assume, for a moment, that you manage to read one book every single day of your life, and you live to be 100 years old. Even with that incredible feat, you’d only manage to read 36,500 books in your lifetime. Out of 134 million books, that’s barely 0.03% of the total number of books!

And let’s not forget our friend, compounding. Over the course of your 100-year life, another 20 million books would be published, at the rate of 200,000 new books per year. So, even with this insane hypothetical reading speed, we’d still only be able to read a tiny fraction of the world’s knowledge.

My Struggle with FOMO

For the longest time, I carried this FOMO in my heart (or maybe my head). Anytime I’d sit down to read a book, I’d feel stressed. It seemed to take forever to finish a chapter, and I couldn’t enjoy the process because I kept thinking about all the other books I could be reading.

That was until I stumbled upon a simple yet profound idea that changed my perspective.

The Solution: Focus on the Best Books

I realized that it’s not about reading all the books—it’s about reading the best ones. I’d rather read the top 100 books repeatedly, absorbing their wisdom, than attempt to skim through everything.

I was mind-blown. This idea solved my FOMO. Instead of worrying about the countless books I’d never get to read, I could focus on mastering the most influential ones.

Finding the Best Books

To start my journey, I did a simple Google search (you could also use AI). I found several websites that rank books based on various criteria. After some exploration, I settled on Goodbooks (no affiliation). This site collects book recommendations from successful people worldwide—authors, scientists, businesspeople, and more. It then ranks the books based on how many influential people recommend them.

This approach has worked wonderfully for me, but there’s a tiny problem.

The Age of Instant Gratification

We live in a world where instant gratification is the norm. Want to buy something? Done. Want to download something? Done. But some things—like building a business or mastering a new skill—just take time. As Edward O. Wilson once said, "We have stone-age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology."

So, even though I narrowed down 134 million books to the top 100, I was still frustrated. I still had to read all those books!

My Method: Summarizing the Top 100 Books

What I did was create summaries of the top 100 books. I used ChatGPT to summarize each book and break down its chapters, so I could get the key takeaways with minimal time investment. If you’re interested, you can get this PDF by clicking the link in the description.

But take this idea with a grain of salt. Summarizing books gives you a quick overview but skips the depth and nuance that the author intended. AI-generated summaries often feel bland, like a smoothie that gives you the nutrients but none of the flavor.

Another benefit of this approach is that I could group related books together. For example, I created categories such as:

Biographies
Personal Development
Philosophy
Science
Business
Human Psychology

But there’s still a drawback. If you have niche interests, like ancient literature or psychedelics, you won’t find many recommendations on mainstream websites. So, I did my own research for those topics and again summarized the books I found.

Conclusion: A Temporary Solution to FOMO

This isn’t a perfect approach, and I’m not suggesting you only read summaries and never touch a full book. However, as a temporary solution to control your FOMO and focus on high-quality content, I think this method works well.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or don’t know where to start, using pre-made summaries can help you get a sense of which books to dive deeper into. It’s been incredibly helpful for me, and I hope it helps you too.

That’s all for today! I’ll see you in the next one.

Bye-bye! 🎶

Watch the Explainer on Youtube 👇

Link