If You’re Ugly, Read More Books

Lately I’ve come across several examples of deep reading and deep thinking, and I’m increasingly aware of how vital deep reading is.

One example is Elon Musk, who advances Tesla and SpaceX through voracious reading. In his own words: “I read a lot of books and talked to lots of people”.

Another is Zhou Hongyi’s quip: “If you’re ugly, read more books.” He says, we spend so much time on our phones doing fragmented reading, afraid of missing any update. But information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. So, we still need to read paper books, more of them.

A third example is Nicholas Carr’s piece from 10 years ago, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He argues that the deep reading fostered by long‑form print not only helps us acquire knowledge from texts but also sparks collisions with what already lives in our own minds. By contrast, fast‑food online reading led by Google and other search engines prizes “efficiency” and “immediacy,” and may erode our capacity for deep reading.

Professionals write professional books; top performers read the hefty tomes; the general public skims bite‑sized web posts and pontificates. When you see gurus on stage quoting widely and sharing sharp perspectives, it’s easy to think they’re just naturally quick‑witted. In fact, they read systematically whenever time allows, think deeply, synthesize, and turn what’s on the page into their own knowledge.

There’s also a little story from the U.S. that reminds us of the importance of reading and learning: