Tim Ferriss

I just finished Eclipse, the third book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. My sister, Karen gave me the first book and got me started on the 4-part series. Reading Meyer’s books is like eating a bag of salty, hot, buttered (real butter) popcorn – once you start, you can’t put them down and often consume more than you should.

What’s funny though, is that about the same time I started the first book in the Twilight series, I was already reading Richard Russo’s incredible book Bridge of Sighs. The books are as different as their authors. I love reading Russo because his work is deep, rich, analytical, thought provoking and has some of the best character development in literature today. But I also love an author like Meyer whose books, arguably written for the female teenager, are swift, shallow and riveting all at the same time. While I appreciate and enjoy both authors, I’ve completed three of Meyer’s books and have yet to finish Russo’s. So should I be skipping Meyer for the more challenging Russo?

It’s arguable that reading of any kind improves one’s mind. We want to feed our minds a healthy diet, but a little mental junk food once in a while is actually a good thing. When I first met Tom I was only reading business books and serious literature. He brought me a frivolous book and said, “If you put yourself on a diet of nothing but turkey, rice and broccoli, you’ll soon lose your enthusiasm for eating.”

Whatever you choose to read, be sure to read every day. Feeding your mind a steady diet of nothing but TV in lieu of reading is like feeding a Kentucky Derby thoroughbred a diet of Lay’s Potato Chips and Cheetos^®. After a point, your mind will start to lose its edge and you’ll no longer be the competitive legal nurse consulting machine you once were. You’ve got to train that brain muscle, just like any other muscle in your body. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.

In addition to the tchotske souvenirs from our global vacations and the family photos in our library at home, you can find a good mix of literature, philosophy, fiction, history and just plain old fun. On those shelves, my Harry Potter books reside comfortably with books by the Dali Llama, Bernard Fall, Sir Edmund Hillary, Alice Hoffman and Martin Cruz Smith. If you poked around you’d find science fiction in the form of a first printing of Frank Herbert’s magnificent Dune, a Bible illustrated by Salvodor Dali and a copy of Good Night Moon. Bill Gates, Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss and other gurus hang out in my home office. They seem to enjoy debating each other from a separate bookshelf of business, marketing, legal, medical and nursing books comfortably out of my sight.

In short, as much as I’d like to read Twilight from dusk to dawn to dusk, I need to read other things and so do you. It’s fun to read light fiction and it’s a great way to stimulate your learning muscles. Just mix it up a bit. Balance the Dennis Lehane with the Geoff Colvin and you’ll keep your mind in its best shape.

So yes, reading Twilight will make you smarter than not reading Twilight – as long as that’s not all you’re reading.

I’m off to start number four in the Twilight series and vow to finish Bridge of Sighs this week.

Success Is Inside!