A Love Letter to Books
15 Things I love about reading
Glasp’s note: At Glasp, we value the close personal relationships we’ve built with thinkers, creators, and doers who fuel curiosity and growth. This week, we spotlight Bobby Powers —a lifelong learner passionate about leadership development and continuous improvement. With more than a decade of experience leading teams and developing learning and development at startups, Bobby understands the transformative power of curiosity and mentorship. You might remember him from his Glasp Talk appearance, where he shared insights on leadership and personal growth, inspiring thousands. We’re honored to continue learning from Bobby and are thrilled to share his thoughtful reflections with our community.
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I’m Bobby Powers, and I run the Leader & Learner publication, where I write two stories per week to help readers develop curiosity, communication, and leadership.
If you asked any of my friends what I’m known for, they’d say reading. I’m unabashedly addicted to reading, and I’ve read over 1,000 books in the past 15 years (mostly nonfiction).
In my reading, I’m a turtle, not a hare. My pace hovers in the “slow to average” range, but I spend 2-3 hours every day reading, which is the sole reason for my high book count.
When people hear how many hundreds of hours I spend reading, they tend to ask an important question: “Why?”
Why spend all of this time with my nose in a book?
Why not spend that time watching movies, TV shows, or YouTube videos?
Why not invest that time in golf, chess, video games, or any other activity?
This post is my attempt to answer that question. Consider it my love letter to books.
If you’re a fellow bibliophile, I hope many of these thoughts will resonate with you and that you’ll share your own list of literary love in the comments section. Or, if the very idea of an ode to books brings to mind one particular friend who’s a lovable book nerd, I hope you’ll pass this list along to them to brighten their day.
Here are 15 things I love about books:
Books forge friendships. I met one of my best friends by nerding out over books at a mutual friend’s birthday party. Once we realized we each ran book websites or podcasts, we swapped contact info and have been tight ever since, meeting up every couple of months to swap life stories and reading recs over dinner.
Books supply interesting stories to share with others. The first book I read for fun as an adult was Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. One of the things that appealed to me about that book was the trove of fascinating stories it gave me for happy hours and coffee dates with friends.
Books teach us how to craft more enjoyable conversations. Along with giving me tons of conversational ammo of interesting topics to discuss, books have explicitly taught me how to listen better, ask thoughtful questions, and tell better stories.
Reading is one of the best ways to solve problems. Struggling to give feedback to friends, family, or co-workers? There’s a book for that. Want to learn how to start a business? There’s a book for that. Same with developing grit, making better decisions, or becoming a writer. Much of my reading the past 15 years has followed the same pattern: Realize I suck at something → Find a book on that topic → Learn how to improve → Put those ideas into practice → Suck less.
Books build potential energy within us. They create a reservoir of knowledge, insights, and ideas to tap into whenever we need them most. As novelist Walter Mosley said, “A peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.”
Books are a cheap way to get an education. Many figures throughout history have credited reading as their primary means of learning, including Malcom X, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Doris Lessing. School is expensive. Books are cheap.
Reading fiction builds empathy. Not only has early research loosely supported this theory, but you can feel its truth when you read well-written novels like The Vanishing Half, Persepolis, The Green Mile, All the Light We Cannot See, or To Kill a Mockingbird. Books transport you into the challenges of people from other cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. “Books are other lives,” says novelist Donna Tartt. “They enable us to be other people.”
Fiction can also help us develop character. Les Misérables taught me love in all its forms: storge (familial), agape (selfless), eros (romantic), philautia (self-love), etc. Atonement showed me the power of forgiveness (and the cost of bitterness). A Christmas Carol encouraged me to approach life with joy and thankfulness.
Biographies show us what’s possible for humans to achieve. Reading about Hamilton’s prodigious writing output showed me I can write more than I thought possible. Biographies about Abraham Lincoln taught me how to turn enemies into friends. And reading about the life of Mister Rogers made me earnestly desire to become a better human.
Books give us travel visas for other worlds. You can explore the ocean depths with the crew of the Nautilus, spend years under house arrest in a Russian hotel, watch the running of the bulls in Pamplona alongside American and British expats, or explore space with astronaut Ryland Grace. Books are a portal to other countries, times, and dimensions.
Books help us self-reflect. In the words of my friend Matt Hutson, “Books are mirrors, time machines, and trail markers all at once. They show you where you’ve been. They reflect who you are. And sometimes, if you’re paying attention, they whisper something about where you’re headed.”
Books hold powerful people accountable. They correct false records when historical events have been whitewashed and give us a peek into what’s happening in locations we can’t see with our own eyes. A few recent examples from my reading: Kill Anything That Moves, Confidence Man, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
Books allow us to be mentored by dead emperors, business titans, and Olympic athletes. People whom we could never normally ask for advice are as close as your local library or Kindle account. Take a second to consider how insane that is. You have wisdom on tap, waiting for you, whenever you’re ready. Just open a book.
Books help us refine our life philosophy. Who do you want to be? What does success look like to you? I’ve gradually developed answers to those questions by reading about the lives of many people and asking myself how I do or don’t want my life to resemble theirs. I’ve even done this with polarizing people throughout history, like Lyndon B. Johnson, Winston Churchill, J.K. Rowling, and Elon Musk.
A single book can change your life. Whether you’re reading fiction or nonfiction, the next book you pick up could drastically alter the trajectory of your life. What book will you pick up next? How will it change you?
I hope you enjoy these great books. Each one includes an affiliate link from Bookshop.org. (If you buy one, you’ll support me as well as local bookstores. Win-win!)
If you’re a book nerd like me, I’d love to connect. Drop me a comment to say hey or subscribe to my Leader & Leader publication, where I share two posts per week for curious leaders and learners.
Btw, my passion for learning is one of the reasons I’ve been a long-time Glasp user. To me, there’s nothing more powerful than knowledge, and I never want to lose the insights I learn from articles or videos I stumble across online. I’m thankful to have a tool that tracks what I learn, along with what I plan to learn next. (Try their “bookmark” feature if you haven’t yet.)
📣 Community Updates by Glasp
🟥 Glasp Talk with Bobby Powers:
Glasp Talk features intimate interviews with luminaries, revealing their emotions, experiences, and stories. The guest, Bobby Powers, is a dedicated learner passionate about leadership and personal development. With over a decade of experience managing teams, leading onboarding, and Learning and Development programs at various startups and SMBs, Bobby is also an avid reader, having read over a thousand books in the last 15 years.
✨ Want a concise summary before diving in? Install the YouTube Summary with ChatGPT extension by Glasp for instant video summaries!
🟦 Kindle Highlights Import:
Did you know that you can import your Kindle highlights into Glasp? With the Glasp browser extension, you can export all your highlights in one click as TXT, CSV, or Markdown — or send them directly to Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, and more. You can even get a daily email with random highlights to reinforce what you’ve read. Please check this tutorial.🟨 PDF Highlights:
Did you know that you can upload and highlight locally stored PDFs using Glasp? Upload any local PDF to Glasp, highlight key passages as you read, add notes, and even generate an AI summary — all in your browser. Please check this tutorial.
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