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Before I love massive books. Books so big, like bricks, you could drown yourself in a pool with them if you’re not careful. It’s not a healthy love, I’ll admit. It’s more like Stockholm Syndrome.

Like a kidnapping victim who falls in love with his captor, these books capture and sequester my mind for so long that I begin to feel deluded that I love them more than anything else in the world. 

When most people go on beach trips, they buy some trashy mystery or romance novel in the airport. Me? I cart Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason with me. In its own suitcase. Why? Because it’s like 800-and-some pages and dense as fuck. Then I take notes in my lounger on the beach while my girlfriend sunbathes. Sometimes I even bring my laptop to do research. My girlfriend tells me this should be embarrassing. I think it’s kind of awesome.

Because here’s the thing about gigantic books: they’re almost always amazing. No editor or publisher in their right mind would allow 1,000 pages of shit to get published.1 They would force the author to either chop the beast in half or tell them to get the hell out of their office.

No, if a 1,000-page book has even survived the chopping block to see the light of day in the first place, that means it’s probably something special.

Writing/reading is like visiting another person’s brain. And a short book or article is like a short stay. You come in, have a coffee, talk about the weather or sports, and then move on.

Writing/reading is like visiting another person’s brain. You’re making out with their brain, enjoying quiet evenings in the park with their brain, staying up late crying and listening.

But with big books and cards, you’re not just visiting the author’s brain, you’re entering into a romantic relationship with it. You’re making out with their brain, enjoying quiet evenings in the park with their brain, staying up late crying and listening to all of the fear and guilt and joy and bliss pour out of their brain. It’s the most severe form of intimacy between two people who have never met and will never meet.

Now, I’m not saying every big book will do this to you. But many will. If you deep dive into them long enough, they will reorient the way you think and feel about this world, and you’ll come out of them better for it. Here are five brain busters that have made me better for it.

I love massive books. Books so big, like bricks, you could drown yourself in a pool with them if you’re not careful. It’s not a healthy love, I’ll admit. It’s more like Stockholm Syndrome. Like a kidnapping victim who falls in love with his captor, these books capture and sequester my mind for so long that I begin to feel deluded that I love them more than anything else in the world. 

When most people go on beach trips, they buy some trashy mystery or romance novel in the airport. Me? I cart Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason with me. In its own suitcase. Why? Because it’s like 800-and-some pages and dense as fuck. Then I take notes in my lounger on the beach while my girlfriend sunbathes. Sometimes I even bring my laptop to do research. My girlfriend tells me this should be embarrassing. I think it’s kind of awesome.

Because here’s the thing about gigantic books: they’re almost always amazing. No editor or publisher in their right mind would allow 1,000 pages of shit to get published.1 They would force the author to either chop the beast in half or tell them to get the hell out of their office.