Books That Geniuses Read (And How They Read Them)

Table of Contents

• What were they reading?

• Why did they read so much?

• How did they read?

• How to read like a genius

What were they reading?

If you crack open the bookshelves of history’s smartest people, you’ll find some interesting titles.

🟧 Einstein

He loved Kant, Schopenhauer, and philosophy that bent the mind. He also read scientific pioneers like Boltzmann and Ernst Mach, whose ideas helped him challenge Newton.

🟧 Darwin

He kept detailed lists of everything he read, natural history books, philosophy, journals, and took notes like his life depended on it.

🟧 Elon Musk

He grew up reading sci-fi and engineering books for hours a day. How did he learn to build rockets? “I read books.”

🟧 Warren Buffett

He reads 500+ pages a day and says that knowledge builds up “like compound interest.”

🟧 Steve Jobs

He reread Autobiography of a Yogi every year, obsessed over King Lear, and blended tech with Zen philosophy.

There’s a pattern:

✅ They didn’t limit themselves to just one genre.
✅ They read across disciplines, science, art, fiction, history, spirituality…
✅ They picked books that taught them something useful, timeless, or weirdly inspiring.

Why did they read so much?

Because it literally makes your brain better.

Serious reading changes your brain structure, boosting white matter, building new neural connections, and improving everything from focus to memory to empathy.

A Cambridge study of 10,000+ kids found that those who read for pleasure had better mental health and cognitive performance as teens. (12 hours a week was the sweet spot.)

It’s also how geniuses think better:

🔸 Reading expands your vocabulary
🔸 Sharpens your attention span
🔸 Enhances problem-solving
🔸 Builds long-term memory
🔸 And it compounds over time (aka the Matthew Effect: the more you read, the easier it is to learn more)

Basically: more books = more brain.

How did they read?

They didn’t just read. They studied.

Most geniuses treat books like puzzles, breaking them down, taking notes, making connections.

🟦 Feynman’s Trick:

Richard Feynman used his now-famous technique to master anything:
Explain it in your own words like you’re teaching it to a 5-year-old.
If you can’t? You don’t understand it.

🟦 Darwin’s system:

He wrote abstracts of every book and paper he read.
Basically made his own searchable library, 100% analog.

🟦 Benjamin Franklin’s hack:

He rewrote articles from memory, then compared his version to the original.
It was like bench-pressing his brain.

🟦 Zettelkasten method:

Used by Niklas Luhmann to write 70+ books.
It’s a note-taking system where each idea becomes a building block, connected to others.
A “second brain” you grow over time.

If you want to get more from what you read, learning how matters just as much as what.

How to read like a genius

You don’t need a 160 IQ to read like Einstein.

But you do need a system.

Here’s how to start:

🟧 Set a goal
Don’t just “read more.” Pick a focus. Learn one topic deeply. Or read one book that shifts your mindset.

🟧 Use active recall
After a chapter, explain what you just read, like you’re teaching it to a 10-year-old. That’s the Feynman Technique.

🟧 Take smart notes
Don’t highlight everything. Summarize in your own words. Create a “second brain” of ideas (Zettelkasten-style if you’re fancy).

🟧 Schedule it
Block 30 mins a day. Make it sacred. No phone. No multitasking. Just you and the book.

🟧 Revisit & reflect
The best readers don’t finish and forget. They come back. Reread. Compare. Connect ideas across books.

📚 Bonus:
Don’t force boring books. But don’t avoid hard ones either. Stretch your brain, but enjoy the process.