The 4 Kinds of Books You (Almost) Never Need to Read

Avoid these time-wasters.

There’s a difference between reading widely and reading foolishly. Reading widely expands your interests, introduces you to new authors and ideas, and keeps you from being locked in to your own psychology. Reading foolishly is a waste of time. The best case scenario of reading foolishly is that you end up with some zingers to write in a review, but even that is dangerous since it could be practicing what C.S. Lewis called “flippancy.” The worst case scenario is that what you know to be foolish ends up looking less foolish over time, for no better reason than a desire to fit in and read the Right Kind of Thing.

Nobody wants to read foolishly. There are, however, things you can remember to avoid doing it. Here’s a quick list of four kinds of books that you almost never need to read. As always, remember that these are reliable generalizations, not absolute rules; you may find the rare example of a book in one of these genres that’s actually good.

The “Hidden Cause” Book

The Hidden Cause book will argue that a very real, very serious problem, struggle, or question in your life can be solved easily by what the author has discovered that nobody else has.