Reading more eclectically

I read 46 books last year. One of my aims this year is to broaden the scope of my reading. I still intend to stick mainly to factual stuff, but hope to branch out a bit. The more eclectically you read, the better your chances of making unexpected connections between different topics.

That said, I’ll also need to keep reading books and articles for my Darwin book, so very much more of the same in that respect.

Broadening my reading should also give me the occasional excuse to write about new topics, both here and elsewhere. What’s the point of unearthing interesting new stuff if you don’t share it? Or, as Charles Darwin once put it:

There is no pleasure in reading a book if one cannot have a good talk over it.

—Darwin, C.R. to Charles Lyell, 9 August [1838]. Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 424”. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-424.xml

…But there I go, banging on about Darwin as usual!