Long before we are writers, we are readers. 
When we don’t know what to write, some calls “writer’s block”. 
But as American journalist Sebastian Junger said, it’s not a block, it’s a sign that we haven’t read enough to write. “It’s not that I’m blocked. It’s that I don’t have enough research to write with power and knowledge about that topic.”

Reading is crucial for writing. 
But reading isn’t just for writing, it opens your mind to many perspectives and helps you grow.

Reading is a vital part of my routine system — a mental exercise. Each month, I list the books I’ve read as a way to track and strengthen my reading habit.

Here are three books I read this May:

1. Tools of Titans — Tim Ferriss

The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers

There’s always a method behind a “magic”. Behind the success of our role models (whatever you define “success”), there’s usually a set of routines or habits they follow. These are their “means” to achieve their “ends”. If their “ends” are what you desire, replicating their “means” gives you a high chance of reaching similar outcomes.

This book is a collection of these “means” — the routines, tactics, and habits of around a hundred well-known people in various fields. It organizes their advice and tools into three main themes: Health, Wealth, and Wisdom.

Reading it is like exploring a buffet as Tim Ferris describes it. You can pick the models you admire, whose ends align with yours, whose values resonate, and who represent the future self you want to become. I find that having role models offers a clear vision of what I want to be. It provides me a path to learn how to get there by adopting their strategies and routines.

But like a buffet, there’s a side effect if you don’t approach it correctly. You need to read it gradually, with practice. It’s not a book with a single theme. If you read it from beginning to end like trying every dish at a buffet, you might experience a “food coma,” as I did initially.

My strategy for reading this book is this:

• When you come to a person you’re interested in, read their pages.
• If the first few paragraphs don’t grab you, feel free to skip them.
• Consider rereading the book every few months when you want to learn new good habits or build new routines.

I find this book very useful, especially since I set a rule to revisit my routines every three months to learn and build new routines, or improve the current ones. This book is a valuable repository for that purpose.

2. Doughnut Economics — Kate Raworth

7 Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

Economics is everywhere in our daily lives. Most of us have some understanding of it. But what is economics, really? What is its ultimate goal or purpose?

I hadn’t seriously pondered these questions until I read this book, even with my background in health economics. It changed how I thought about economics, its ultimate goals, and its larger ecosystem.

The book takes you through the history of economics. It starts from its origins, when “economics” meant “household management,” (in Ancient Greek, “oikos” means household, “nomos” means rules or norms) then moves to city management, state management, multinational management, and finally, planetary management. Over roughly two hundred years, this relatively young science (compared to physics, for example) has, according to Kate Raworth, formed some flawed beliefs and set misguided goals. This has contributed to the environmental devastation we see today. She argues that rethinking, unlearning, and relearning are crucial for the next generation of economists and for all of us.

What surprised me most and resonated deeply was learning about the “Holocene.” This is the period when changes in the Earth’s rotation made the climate more favorable, allowing humans to cultivate agriculture and civilizations to thrive. We often hear that humans are powerful and can conquer nature. That’s not the full story. This Holocene shows that the Earth was generous to us. We’ve taken what was given without realizing its source. This perspective made me feel more responsible for protecting the environment. The Earth has been generous, what can we do in return?

It’s a thought-provoking book.

3. The Meaning of It All — Richard Feynman

Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist.

This book is a collection of three lectures Richard Feynman delivered at the University of Washington (Seattle). Feynman is famous not only as a Nobel laureate in physics but also for his philosophy of thinking and his ability to explain complex things clearly.

This lecture series covers his thoughts on:

• The uncertainty of science (Lecture 1)
• The uncertainty of values (Lecture 2)
• The “unscientific age” as he saw it at that time (Lecture 3)

If you’re asking “What is science?” or want to learn how a great scientist thinks, this book is for you.

Each book this month offered a different kind of mental nourishment. Whether it’s understanding the habits of successful people, rethinking economic models, or pondering the nature of science, reading continues to be a journey of discovery.