Teddy Roosevelt seems to us a paradox today, and did in his time as well: A man’s man hunter, cowboy, and war hero, who supposedly saved the game of football from extinction (Roosevelt worried that banning the game would produce “mollycoddles instead of vigorous men”); also, a Harvard-educated New York progressive and treehugging conservationist hero, who re-defined presidential style with Brooks Brothers three-piece suits and uniforms. And for all of his public heroics, Roosevelt was also a doting father who gave his nickname to the most universally cuddly species of bear. Perhaps some of the best representations of Roosevelt’s personal ethos are photographs of his combination library and gun room, hung with hunting trophies and skins in the home he built for his family in Oyster Bay, New York
One significant reason Roosevelt could embody seemingly widely divergent traits was that he was a devourer of books, reading tens of thousands in his lifetime, absorbing thousands of points of view from every possible source. But Roosevelt did not read the way we do today—rapidly taking in information for its own sake, with automated services compiling recommendations from the metadata (a phenomenon Susan Jacoby has indicted as part of our hyper-partisan, groupthink culture). He read according to his whim, putting pleasure ahead of profit and disdaining fads and rigid cultural norms. He was, literary site Book Riot supposes, “probably the most well-read president, and perhaps one of the most well-read men in all of history.”
Book Riot points us toward a few pages of Roosevelt’s autobiography, in which—amidst picaresque chapters like “In Cowboy Land” and heavy ones like “The Presidency; Making an Old Party Progressive”—Roosevelt pauses to detail his thoughts on reading in a particularly pragmatic chapter titled “Outdoors and Indoors.” Although Roosevelt does not present his contemplation as an easily digestible list of rules, as is the fashion now, Book Riot has seen fit to condense his thought. Below see the first five of their list, “Teddy Roosevelt’s 10 Rules for Reading.” I’d be willing to bet that if everyone followed Teddy’s advice, we could up the woeful national literacy quotient within a few short years.
1. “The room for choice is so limitless that to my mind it seems absurd to try to make catalogues which shall be supposed to appeal to all the best thinkers. This is why I have no sympathy whatever with writing lists of the One Hundred Best Books, or the Five-Foot Library [a reference to the Harvard Classics]. It is all right for a man to amuse himself by composing a list of a hundred very good books… But there is no such thing as a hundred books that are best for all men, or for the majority of men, or for one man at all times.”
2. “A book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular time.”
3. “Personally, the books by which I have profited infinitely more than by any others have been those in which profit was a by-product of the pleasure; that is, I read them because I enjoyed them, because I liked reading them, and the profit came in as part of the enjoyment.”
4. “The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.”
5. “He must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not like.”
Book Riot points us toward a few pages of Roosevelt’s autobiography, in which—amidst picaresque chapters like “In Cowboy Land” and heavy ones like “The Presidency; Making an Old Party Progressive”—Roosevelt pauses to detail his thoughts on reading in a particularly pragmatic chapter titled “Outdoors and Indoors.” Although Roosevelt does not present his contemplation as an easily digestible list of rules, as is the fashion now, Book Riot has seen fit to condense his thought. Below see the first five of their list, “Teddy Roosevelt’s 10 Rules for Reading.” I’d be willing to bet that if everyone followed Teddy’s advice, we could up the woeful national literacy quotient within a few short years.
1. “The room for choice is so limitless that to my mind it seems absurd to try to make catalogues which shall be supposed to appeal to all the best thinkers. This is why I have no sympathy whatever with writing lists of the One Hundred Best Books, or the Five-Foot Library [a reference to the Harvard Classics]. It is all right for a man to amuse himself by composing a list of a hundred very good books… But there is no such thing as a hundred books that are best for all men, or for the majority of men, or for one man at all times.”
2. “A book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular time.”
3. “Personally, the books by which I have profited infinitely more than by any others have been those in which profit was a by-product of the pleasure; that is, I read them because I enjoyed them, because I liked reading them, and the profit came in as part of the enjoyment.”
4. “The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.”
5. “He must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not like.”
Don’t fake it. If you don’t like The Great Gatsby, shout it from the rooftops. If you think Stephen King is a dolt, I’ll forgive you. Don’t pretend to like something just because you think you’re supposed to.
6. “Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover’s besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls ‘the mad pride of intellectuality,’ taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books.”
There are no hard and fast rules, we all like different things, so stop bickering already. Also, don’t judge others about their book choices lest ye be judged. You know you have some book skeletons in your closet.
7. “Now and then I am asked as to ‘what books a statesman should read,’ and my answer is, poetry and novels – including short stories under the head of novels.”
A statesman, politician, historian, and gamesman says to read novels and poetry and short stories above all else. Awesome.
8. ”Ours is in no sense a collector’s library. Each book was procured because some one of the family wished to read it. We could never afford to take overmuch thought for the outsides of books; we were too much interested in their insides.”
Don’t collect titles on your shelves that you think will make you look neato and well-read. Stock your shelves with what you’re interested in, and if people judge you, throw ‘em out the door.
9. “[We] all need more than anything else to know human nature, to know the needs of the human soul; and they will find this nature and these needs set forth as nowhere else by the great imaginative writers, whether of prose or of poetry.”
Isn’t this really the heart of reading? Gosh I love this line. Reading is ultimately about the human spirit, and those are the books we most love and enjoy. Amen, brother.
10. “Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books.”
Believe it or not, there are some things in life more important than books. Exercise, eating right, healthy relationships — these are all important things. Sure, read as much as you possibly can, but don’t do it at the neglect of every other realm of your life.
6. “Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover’s besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls ‘the mad pride of intellectuality,’ taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books.”
There are no hard and fast rules, we all like different things, so stop bickering already. Also, don’t judge others about their book choices lest ye be judged. You know you have some book skeletons in your closet.
7. “Now and then I am asked as to ‘what books a statesman should read,’ and my answer is, poetry and novels – including short stories under the head of novels.”
A statesman, politician, historian, and gamesman says to read novels and poetry and short stories above all else. Awesome.
8. ”Ours is in no sense a collector’s library. Each book was procured because some one of the family wished to read it. We could never afford to take overmuch thought for the outsides of books; we were too much interested in their insides.”
Don’t collect titles on your shelves that you think will make you look neato and well-read. Stock your shelves with what you’re interested in, and if people judge you, throw ‘em out the door.
9. “[We] all need more than anything else to know human nature, to know the needs of the human soul; and they will find this nature and these needs set forth as nowhere else by the great imaginative writers, whether of prose or of poetry.”
Isn’t this really the heart of reading? Gosh I love this line. Reading is ultimately about the human spirit, and those are the books we most love and enjoy. Amen, brother.
10. “Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books.”
Believe it or not, there are some things in life more important than books. Exercise, eating right, healthy relationships — these are all important things. Sure, read as much as you possibly can, but don’t do it at the neglect of every other realm of your life.