📖 Day 3: How To Use Books You Loved To Find Even More Amazing Books

Welcome to Day 3/5 of The Art of Reading 101!

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❤️ How To Use Books You Loved To Find Even More Amazing Books

Have you ever read a book that blew your mind and wished you could read more books like it?

Me to,

Fortunately, there’s a way–three actually.

I call it the Breadcrumb strategy.

Just like how in the famous fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, the kids left breadcrumbs to find their way home, amazing books leave breadcrumbs to help us find our way to more wonderful books.

🍞 The Breadcrumb Strategy

Here are 3 ways to use a book you love to find even more amazing books:

1) Read Other Books By That Same Author

This is an easy reading hack that most people forget about.

I can’t tell you the amount of times people asked me for a book recommendation and didn’t know the author has written several books on the same subject.

That’s because most authors tend to stick to their niche (like Ryan Holiday with Stoicism) so if you liked one of their books, chances are you’ll enjoy their other ones.

For instance, I loved “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield.

So I read his other writing books “Turning Pro” and “Nobody Wants To Read Your Sh*t” and loved both of those as well.

So if you finish an amazing book and want something similar to it, before looking at other authors, first check to see if that author has written anything else.

2) Read The Books That Built Your Favorite Book

Amazing books don’t appear out of thin air, they’re built from other great books.

The famous author Robert Greene has said that he reads approximately 300 books for each new book he writes.

But usually, there are 1-3 key books that helped the author the most.

What you want to do is follow the footnotes or look at the index to see which books are most often cited.

For instance, in the bestselling book “Atomic Habits”, James Clear cites work from Charles Duhigg (author of “The Power of Habit”) and BJ Fogg (author of “Tiny Habits”) several times.

Not surprisingly, both books are about habit formation and are worth reading if you’re interested in diving deeper into the science of habits.

3) Read The Books That Your Favorite Author Loved

Think about one of your favorite authors.

If their book changed your life, aren’t you curious to know what books changed their life?

In other words, who does the person you admire, admire?

Now you might be wondering, “How in the world can I possibly find out which books my favorite author loved?”

Fortunately, there’s a cool website called mostrecommendedbooks.com that can help.

Simply type in the name of an author you love, and it will show you a list of books they recommend and what they said about it.

For example, if you loved “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, you’ll see he recommends reading “The Bhagavad Gita” and said that it’s “A book that everybody should read."

I’ve used this strategy countless times to find amazing books and even used this strategy in person.

For instance, I asked Jordan Peterson what his favorite books were and one of the ones he listed was “The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

I never would’ve found the book without his recommendation, but I’m glad I did since it’s a mind-altering read.

✅ Actionable Advice

1) Grab a book you love and see if that author has written any other books.

2) Look at which books are cited in your favorite book and give those a read.

3) Find out what books your favorite author loved and read those books.

I hope these tips were helpful, I’ll see you tomorrow!

-Alex W.