Ways Reading Books Makes You Better than Literally Everyone Else

This article was updated on October 19, 2016

Look, books! Like what you've read!

There are so many articles telling us why people who read are more successful, more attractive, or even “moreextraordinary human beings,” but few get to the meat of the issue. Reading books doesn’t just make you great; it makes you better than everyone else.

It's difficult to live as a reader in a world of non-readers. We’ve all seen them, these slope-browed primitives standing around, staring at their disgusting telephones. The only paper they encounter is in the bathroom...

They’re beneath you, these so-called people. These voluntary illiterates.

1. Time Management

Your typical book reader has excellent time management. We've developed it over long years of reading. Now, in the face of incredible odds, we still manage to find time to read and to tell everyone how important we are because we’re reading.

2. Reading Makes You Instantly More Attractive

Let’s face it, the years spent without sunlight have not been kind to us. By contrast, books always look excellent. By reading a book (and holding it between your face and the outside world), you will render yourself instantly beautiful.

3. Vocabulary

Skulls are just like books, but for phrenologists.

As well we all know, the first goal of language is not to communicate with others, but to disguise your ignorance. Your ridiculous friends should have to work hard to understand you. If they can’t, it is only because they are beneath you. The poor, dull-witted fools.

Once you know enough words, you will gain access to whole secret alphabets, special glyphic letters that ordinary people are not allowed to know. You may then write with them, messages that only your equals will understand.

4. Introspection

All those long hours spent reading alone lend themselves to introspection. Most people never pause to reflect on who and what they are. Those of us who read books take the time to check every now and again, just to make sure that we really are better than everyone else.

Yep. Still better.

5. Knowledge

One of the most important things about reading is that it doesn’t really matter what you’re reading, as long as you employ it correctly. You should always be wary of actually ‘learning’ anything, but you can note the structure of a good sentence so that you can appropriate it later. Good sentences work even when you change some of the words.

A wise man once said,

“With great book-reading comes great thing-knowing.”

6. Analytical Thinking

Did you know that the average human being spends most of their time not knowing what to do? Not us book readers though. We know exactly what to do in any situation, no matter how unexpected.

Situations in which book readers know exactly what to do while other people are lost:

• Are you a single man in possession of a good fortune? You'll want a wife.
• Is it the best of times? Probably also the worst of times.
• Vampire invades London? We’ll have a stakeout.
• Painting of you is ageing while you’re not? Stab that painting.
• Went to bed and turned into a giant insect? Don't worry about it.

7. Improved Concentration

The increased powers of concentration developed by years of reading books will help you navigate the world outside of books just as well as the world of literature. Just think about how long this stupid list is, and you’ve already made it this far! You’re a titan.

8. Empathy

Sometimes the fun of a book is just... leafing through the pages.

Reading books makes you more empathetic. However, reading books that other people are currently trying to read makes you doubly so. If you see someone reading in a café or on the train, standing behind them and reading over their shoulder is an incredible way to build empathy.

Are they angry? Yes. Do you understand why? Also yes.

Do you feel more empathetic yet? I’m willing to bet you do (and since all of my reading has made me more empathetic, I am probably right).

9. Mental Stimulation

Reading is the only thing that stimulates the mind. Without books, your brain would soon turn soft and spongy in your skull. Within weeks, you’d be watching LOST again. The books are the only thing keeping you together. More than that, though, if you’re reading very serious books, you can actually enhance your mind significantly.

Experts agree that if anyone were to read Finnegan’s Wake or A Naked Singularity they would soon gain the ability glimpse into the future and move objects with their mind.

10. They Don’t Read to the End

Real book readers know the subtle pleasure of not quite finishing a book. Instead, they get most of the way there and then studiously avoid ever talking about a book’s ending. Come on, admit it, we’ve all been there. 

Published on October 4, 2016 by Aloysius Slim

Aloysius Slim spent his youth apprenticed to a cobbler. One morning, while mending a customer's shoe, he found that the sole had been padded with folded newspaper to keep the rain ...SHOW MORE