Ryan Holiday：改变我生活的 38 条阅读规则
// Ryan Holiday（作家、出版人、播客主）最近发表了一篇博文，谈论他的 38 条阅读规则。与我长期实践的阅读理念，约有九成契合。在此通过 OpenAI 翻译推荐。
It’s a weird thing to say, but I guess I’m a professional reader. That’s really what authors are. A book is made of books. “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book,” Samuel Johnson said.
说出来有点奇怪，但我想我可以算是一个专业读者。这其实就是作家的本质。一本书是由许多书组成的。塞缪尔·约翰逊曾说过：“作家最大部分的时间都花在阅读上；一个人为了写一本书，会翻遍半个图书馆。”
I’ve written 15 books now, which has meant reading many thousands of books in the process. Once a month for the last 15 years, I’ve recommended many of those books in the Reading List Email. And in 2021, I opened my own bookstore filled with my all-time favorites.
我现在已经写了15本书，这意味着在这个过程中阅读了成千上万本书。在过去的15年里，每个月我都会在阅读清单邮件中推荐其中的很多书籍。而在2021年，我开了一家自己的书店，里面摆满了我一直以来最喜欢的书籍。
So the question I am asked most often is:
所以我最常被问到的问题是：
How do you read so much? What’s the secret?
你是怎么读这么多书的？有什么秘诀吗？
The answer is not “I’m a speedreader.” As I’ve written before, speed reading is a scam. The answer is that I have a system, a process that helps me be a productive reader. It’s not my system exactly, as I’ve taken many strategies from history’s greatest readers. Nor is this a system designed around speed or quantity. Reading is wonderful in and of itself, why would I try to rush through it? No, I try to do it well. I try to enjoy it.
答案不是“我是一个快速阅读者。”正如我之前写过的，快速阅读是一种骗局。答案是我有一个系统，一个帮助我成为高效阅读者的过程。这并不完全是我的系统，因为我从历史上最伟大的阅读者那里学到了许多策略。这也不是一个以速度或数量为设计目标的系统。阅读本身就是美妙的，我为什么要试图匆匆忙忙地阅读呢？不，我试图做到阅读得好。我试图享受阅读的过程。
In this email, I thought I would detail some of the rules I’ve come to follow over the years. They don’t all make me faster, but they do make me better.
在这封电子邮件中，我想详细说明一些我多年来遵循的规则。它们并不都让我变得更快，但却让我变得更好。
–Do it all the time. Bring a book with you everywhere. I’ve read at the Grammy’s and in the moments before going under for a surgery. I’ve read on planes and beaches, in cars and in cars while I waited for a tow truck. You take the pockets of time you can get.
一直都这样做。随身携带一本书。我在格莱美颁奖典礼上读过书，在手术前的那一刻也读过。我在飞机上和海滩上读过书，在车里等待拖车的时候也读过。抓住一切可以利用的碎片时间。
–Physical books only. - 仅限实体书籍。
-It’s not that I have a problem with audiobooks–if it gets you reading, I’m all for it. I just think there’s something very special about the physical form. I just read a great book about this actually called Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf.
我并不反对有声书——如果它能让你阅读，我完全支持。我只是觉得实体书籍有一种特别的魅力。实际上，我刚刚读了一本关于这个话题的好书，叫做《普鲁斯特与鱼》（作者：玛丽安·沃尔夫）。
–Hardcover over paperback.
- 精装书比平装书更好。
–Bring a pen with you too. Reading is better if you’re taking notes.
带上一支笔。如果你记笔记的话，阅读会更好。
–Keep a
-保持一本常识书。正如塞内加所写：“我们应该寻找那些有益的教导和富有精神和高尚思想的话语，它们能够立即应用于实践，而不是那些牵强附会或过时的表达，或者夸张的隐喻和修辞手法，并且要学得如此熟练，以至于言辞成为行动。”（这是关于我的常识书方法的视频）。
–Err on the side of age. Classics are classics for a reason.
- 在年龄方面保守一点。经典之所以成为经典，是有原因的。
-Beat them up. Books are not precious things. As an author, I love it when people hand me a book to sign that has had real miles put on it. When people hand me a
打败他们。书不是宝贵的东西。作为一名作者，当人们递给我一本翻阅过的书让我签名时，我会感到很高兴。当人们递给我一本完好无损的书并告诉我它是他们最喜欢的时，我会认为他们只是在奉承我。我的最爱书籍是显而易见的...因为它们已经破烂不堪（比如我的《沉思录》的副本）。
–In every book you read, try to find your next one in its footnotes or bibliography. This is how you build a knowledge base in a subject—it’s how you trace a subject back to its core.
在你阅读的每一本书中，试着在脚注或参考文献中找到你下一本书。这是你在某个主题上建立知识库的方式，也是你追溯一个主题到其核心的方式。
-Same goes when you find an author you love, read them ALL. I read Cecil Woodham-Smith’s book on the charge of the Light Brigade…only to find she had also written a biography of Florence Nightingale. It was that discovery that shaped a full third of my book Courage is Calling.
当你找到一个你喜欢的作者时，也是一样的。读他们的全部作品。我读了塞西尔·伍德姆-史密斯关于轻骑兵冲锋的书...结果发现她还写了一本关于弗洛伦斯·南丁格尔的传记。正是这个发现塑造了我书中三分之一的内容《勇气的召唤》。
-That comment from (the disgraced and indicted FTX founder) Sam Bankman Fried about how every book could be a 900 word blog post is
那个来自（被败坏名声并被起诉的FTX创始人）Sam Bankman Fried的评论，说每本书都可以变成一个900字的博客文章，简直是荒谬至极。阅读的整个目的就是要真正理解某个事物。所以，如果你只是想要“要点”，那就跳过书籍，坚持看博客文章吧。
–If you see a book you want, just buy it. Don’t worry about the price. Reading is not a luxury. It’s not something you splurge on. It’s a necessity. Even if all you get is one life-changing idea from a book, that’s still a pretty good ROI.
-如果你看到一本你想要的书，就买下来。不要担心价格。阅读不是奢侈品。它不是你挥霍金钱的东西。它是一种必需品。即使你从一本书中只得到一个改变生活的想法，那也是相当不错的回报。
-That might sound privileged, but Warren Buffett considers the foundation of his multi-billion dollar empire to be a book. At 19-years-old, he bought a copy of The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. We don’t know exactly what he paid for it, but in the early 1950s, a hardcover typically went for $1.30–the best investment he ever made, he’s said. Today, Buffett’s worth $108.7 billion, having given away some $37 billion to charitable causes. Not a bad ROI!
这可能听起来很特权，但沃伦·巴菲特认为他多亿美元帝国的基础是一本书。19岁时，他买了本本杰明·格雷厄姆的《聪明的投资者》。我们不知道他当时付了多少钱，但在20世纪50年代初，一本精装书通常售价为1.30美元，他曾说这是他做过的最好的投资。如今，巴菲特的身价达到了1087亿美元，他已经捐赠了约370亿美元给慈善事业。回报率不错！
–Some people might recoil at categorizing a book that way, but as a lover of literature, I have no problem with it. I myself wouldn’t be writing this to you today if I hadn’t bought a paperback of Meditations in 2006 for $8.25 on Amazon. That book of philosophy taught me not just about life, but also schooled me in the art of writing, in working with and managing people, and gave me the speciality which I now write my own books about. Again, not a bad ROI.
-有些人可能会对将一本书归类为这样的方式感到反感，但作为一个文学爱好者，我对此没有任何问题。如果我在2006年没有在亚马逊上以8.25美元的价格购买一本《沉思录》的平装书，我今天就不会给你写这封信了。那本哲学书不仅教会了我关于生活的道理，还教会了我如何与人合作和管理，给了我现在写自己书的专长。再次说，这个投资回报率不错。
–Don’t just read books, re-read books. There’s a great line the Stoics loved—that we never step in the same river twice. The books don’t change, but you do.
不要只是读书，要重读书。斯多葛派喜欢的一句话很有道理——我们永远不能两次踏入同一条河流。书籍不会改变，但你会改变。
–As I said, speed reading is a scam. You just have to spend a lot of time reading.
- 就像我说的，速读是个骗局。你只需要花很多时间阅读。
–If a book sucks, stop reading it. The best readers actually quit a lot of books. Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy reading.
- 如果一本书糟糕透顶，就别再读了。最好的读者其实放弃了很多书。生命太短暂，没必要读那些你不喜欢的书。
–The rule I like is ‘one hundred pages minus your age.’ Say you’re 30 years old—if a book hasn’t captivated you by page 70, stop reading it. So as you age, you have less time to endure crap.
我喜欢的规则是“一百页减去你的年龄”。比如说你今年30岁，如果一本书在第70页之前没有吸引住你，就停止阅读。随着年龄增长，你就没有那么多时间浪费在糟糕的书上了。
-Embrace
拥抱意外的惊喜。我最喜欢的很多书都是我在书店随意拿起来的（这就是为什么我说不要为买书而烦恼，只要随机选择就好）。这就是书店的用途，也是我努力打造的理念。它是比任何算法都更好的发现引擎。
-Don’t just build a library, build an anti-library—a stack of unread books that humbles you and reminds you just how much there is still to learn. It’s a sign of what you don’t yet know. It’s also a resource there whenever you might need to do a deep dive into that topic.
不要只是建立一个图书馆，而是建立一个反图书馆——一堆未读的书籍，让你感到谦卑，并提醒你还有多少东西需要学习。这是你尚未了解的标志。它也是一个资源，无论何时你需要深入研究某个主题，它都会在那里。
–Emerson’s line was, “If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.” When I was a teenager, I got in the habit of doing this. Every time I would meet a successful or important person I admire, I would ask them: What’s a book that changed your life? And then I would read that book (in college, for instance, I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Drew, who was the one who turned me on to Stoicism).
-爱默生的话是：“如果我们遇到一个智慧非凡的人，我们应该问他读了哪些书。”当我还是个十几岁的少年时，我养成了这样的习惯。每次我遇到一个我钦佩的成功或重要的人，我都会问他们：有没有一本改变你生活的书？然后我会读那本书（比如在大学时，我很幸运地遇到了德鲁博士，他是让我对斯多葛主义产生兴趣的人）。
–Speaking of Emerson…in his essay “Reading,” he put down his three rules: “1. Never read a book that is not a year old [because only good books survive]. 2. Never read any but famed books [same reason]. 3. Never read any but what you like.”
说到爱默生……在他的文章《阅读》中，他提出了三条规则：“1. 不要读一年内出版的书[因为只有好书才能留存下来]。2. 只读著名的书籍[同样的原因]。3. 只读自己喜欢的书。”
–Whenever I’m in a reading funk/dry spell (most commonly, around book launches), I find I’m able to get back into a groove by re-reading some of my favorite novels. What Makes Sammy Run? The Great Gatsby. Ask the Dust. The Moviegoer.
每当我在阅读上感到困顿或干涸（通常是在书籍发布期间），我发现通过重新阅读一些我最喜欢的小说，我能够重新进入状态。《是什么让山米成功？》《了不起的盖茨比》《尘埃问》《电影迷》。
-Speaking of Ask the Dust, I read that because my friend Neil Strauss said in an interview it was his all-time favorite novel. He also turned me onto Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, which he had also raved about. When people rave about something, don’t dismiss it. If someone says a book changed their life? Consider it seriously. They’re talking about something powerful.
说到《向尘埃问候》，我读过这本书是因为我的朋友尼尔·斯特劳斯在一次采访中说这是他一直以来最喜欢的小说。他还向我推荐了库特·哈姆森的《饥饿》，他对这本书也大加赞赏。当有人对某件事情大加赞赏时，不要轻易忽视。如果有人说一本书改变了他们的生活，那就要认真考虑。他们在谈论一种强大的东西。
-I find myself sometimes
我有时候发现自己不太愿意读一些非常流行的东西。这种势利眼从来没有对我有好处。往往当我开始阅读那些畅销书时，我会后悔不已——它们之所以畅销是有原因的！它们很棒！不要成为一个书呆子。
–You say you don’t have time to read but what does the screen time app on your phone say? What does your calendar say?
你说你没时间读书，但你手机上的屏幕时间应用显示什么？你的日历上显示什么？
–If you want to understand current events, don’t rely on breaking news. Find a book about a similar event in the past. Read history. Read psychology. Read biographies. Go for information that has a long half-life, not something that’s going to be contradicted in the next bulletin.
-如果你想了解当前事件，不要依赖即时新闻。找一本关于类似事件的书籍。阅读历史。阅读心理学。阅读传记。获取那些具有较长半衰期的信息，而不是下一条新闻快报就会被推翻的内容。
-Examples: Read The Great Influenza to understand COVID. Read It Can’t Happen Here to understand modern threats to
例子：阅读《大流感》来了解COVID。阅读《这里不可能发生》来了解对民主的现代威胁。阅读《第一原则》来了解美国政治。
–Ruin the ending. I almost always go straight to Wikipedia and figure out the plot–especially if I am reading something tough like Shakespeare or Aeschylus. Who cares about spoilers? Your aim as a reader is to understand WHY something happened, the what is secondary.
毁掉结局。我几乎总是直接去维基百科上了解情节，尤其是当我阅读像莎士比亚或埃斯库罗斯这样困难的作品时。谁在乎剧透呢？作为读者，你的目标是理解为什么事情发生了，而具体内容是次要的。
–One of the things that people in publishing know is that readers tend to skip prefaces and forewords. This is crazy! Those things are there for a reason. They often have a ton of helpful and interesting stuff about the context around when the person was writing, who the work ended up influencing, and other tidbits that sometimes stick with you longer than even the work itself.
-出版界的人都知道，读者往往会跳过前言和序言。这真是太疯狂了！这些东西存在是有原因的。它们通常包含大量有用和有趣的内容，关于作者写作时的背景环境、作品对其他人的影响，以及其他一些小知识，有时甚至比作品本身更能让人记忆深刻。
-”Don’t be satisfied just getting the ‘gist’ of things,” is what Marcus Aurelius learned from his philosophy teacher Rusticus. One of the reasons I try to
“不要满足于只了解事物的‘要领’，”这是马库斯·奥勒留从他的哲学老师鲁斯蒂库斯那里学到的。我之所以试图揭示情节，通读序言和前言，阅读关于我正在阅读的书籍的评论和文章，观看相关视频，以及阅读其他相关主题的书籍，其中一个原因就是我想真正理解我所面对的东西。如果我不这样做，如果我只想要一个表面的理解，那么为什么还要读书呢？
–When intelligent people read, they ask themselves a simple question: What do I plan to do with this information?
当聪明人阅读时，他们会问自己一个简单的问题：我打算用这些信息做什么？
-My favorite line from Harry Truman is, “not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” When we read, we aren’t learning to impress people, to win some game of mental gymnastics. It’s to get better, to find things you can use in your real life. If you’re looking to expand what you do with the books you’re reading, I highly recommend our Read to Lead course. It’s been taken by over 10,000 people, and is our most popular for a reason.
我最喜欢的哈里·S·杜鲁门的名言是：“并非所有读者都是领袖，但所有领袖都是读者。” 当我们阅读时，我们不是为了给人留下印象，也不是为了赢得某种心理体操的比赛。而是为了变得更好，找到你可以在现实生活中使用的东西。如果你想扩展你阅读的内容，我强烈推荐我们的“阅读领导力”课程。它已经被超过10,000人参加，也是我们最受欢迎的课程之一。
–Read widely and from people you disagree with. The Stoics believed that we should actively engage with anyone who can be a source of wisdom to us, regardless of their origin. If there is wisdom out there to be had, we’d be wise to avail ourselves of it.
广泛阅读，包括与你意见不合的人的作品。斯多亚派认为，我们应该积极与任何能为我们带来智慧的人进行交流，不论他们的出身如何。如果有智慧可得，我们应该明智地利用它。
-Pretentiousness is bullshit. Epictetus once heard a student talking proudly about having made their way through the dense works of Chryssipus. You know, Epictetus told him, if Chryssipus had been a better writer, you’d have less to brag about.
装腔作势是胡扯。Epictetus曾听到一位学生自豪地谈论自己已经读完了Chryssipus的深奥著作。你知道吗，Epictetus告诉他，如果Chryssipus是一位更好的作家，你就没那么多值得吹嘘的了。
–Look for wisdom, not facts. We’re not reading to just find random pieces of information. What’s the point of that? We’re reading to accumulate a mass of true wisdom—that you can turn to and apply in your actual life.
寻找智慧，而非事实。我们阅读并非只是为了找到零散的信息。那有什么意义呢？我们阅读是为了积累真正的智慧，这些智慧可以在你的实际生活中借鉴和应用。
-Another line from Seneca is about how people get too caught up in the facts and figures and they miss the message. I totally agree. On the literary snobs who speculate for hours about whether The Iliad or The Odyssey was written first, or who the real author was (a debate that rages on today), he said, “Far too many good brains have been afflicted by the pointless enthusiasm for useless knowledge.”
塞内加（Seneca）的另一句名言是关于人们过于迷恋事实和数据，而忽略了信息的核心。我完全同意。对于那些整天纠结于《伊利亚特》或《奥德赛》哪本书先写、真正的作者是谁（这个争论至今仍在进行）的文学狂热者，他说：“太多优秀的头脑被毫无意义的知识热情所困扰。”
–If a book is good, recommend it and pass it along to other people.
-如果一本书很好，就推荐给别人并传递下去。
It’s the last one that I follow the most. I’m proud of the books I’ve been able to champion and turn people onto over the years. I feel like I am paying forward what the Gregory Hays translation of Meditations did for me (I loved it so much I put out my own edition you can grab here).
这是我最关注的最后一点。多年来，我为自己能够推崇并让人们喜欢的书感到自豪。我觉得我正在回报格雷戈里·海斯的《沉思录》翻译对我的帮助（我非常喜欢它，所以我自己出版了一本版本，你可以在这里获取）。
I love looking around my bookstore and seeing titles that I don’t see in other bookstores very often. Just recently, Ann Roe’s publisher of Pontius Pilate told us they had to do another printing because we’d raved about it too much. I heard something similar about William Seabrook’s Asylum. That’s the job of a reader and a writer–to find great stuff and suck everything you can out of it as you read it and re-read it.
我喜欢四处逛逛我的书店，看到那些在其他书店很少见的书名。就在最近，安·罗伊的出版商告诉我们，由于我们对《本丢·彼拉多》大加赞赏，他们不得不再次印刷。我听说威廉·西布鲁克的《疯人院》也有类似的情况。这就是读者和作家的工作——找到好东西，并在阅读和反复阅读中尽可能地吸取一切。
And to help others do the same.
并帮助他人做到同样的事情。
I hope these rules help you help yourself and help others.
希望这些规则能帮助你自助，也能帮助他人。
P.S：测试一下公众号后台新功能「带货」，看看能否赚回这篇的 OpenAI 翻译服务费：