As someone who loves books, you might find that you tend to read the same types or genres of books over and over. And while this can be great for growing your knowledge of this genre and entertaining yourself in a reliable way, there’s also a lot that can be gained from reading books about things that you may not know a lot about or even about things that you can’t relate to at all.
The benefits that you can gain from opening your mind to thoughts and ideas that might not initially ring true for you can be incredible. So to help you see just why this is a challenge you might want to undertake, here are three reasons to read books from authors with differing views for yours.
To Learn More About People And Places You’re Unfamiliar With
If you only ever read about things that you’re already well versed in, you can’t hope to really learn anything new from the texts that you’re reading. But if you choose to read texts from authors that are talking about things that you don’t know about, you can gain a glimpse into a world of people and places that you may never have gotten to experience otherwise.
As a person, learning more about people or places that you’re unfamiliar with can help you become more accepting of others that might be part of these communities. For example, if you’ve never known a police officer and might have negative feelings toward some in this group, reading a book written by a police officer could help you develop more of an understanding of groups meant to help and serve police officers.
To Find Value In Differences
As you learn more about people, places, and ideas that are different to you through the books that you read, you can then develop empathy for the people who do connect with these stories on a more personal level.
Oftentimes, it’s easy to only look on the surface level of things that we’re not intimately familiar with, even big things like racism. But when we read books where these topics are discussed by people who have experience with them, we can find value in their point of view and come to better understand them and accept them in our real life.
To Become More Knowledgeable About The Overall Topic
Even if you’re not reading a book with differing opinions from yours so that you can learn more about the opposing side of an argument, when you have a broader understanding of people that think differently from you, you can then become more knowledgeable about the topic as a whole and better support your own claims and points of view. By taking into account what others say about something, you can better form your own opinions based on all available knowledge on the subject.
If you’ve never really read anything written by an author that had a differing opinion or lifestyle than you, consider how the benefits mentioned above could be a positive reason to read these types of books in the future.