Adler doesn't say you should read every book deeply though. He defines four levels of reading, from reading the table of content, to deep reading and synthesis

Adler doesn't say you should read every book deeply though. He defines four levels of reading, from reading the table of content, to deep reading and synthesis of multiple works in the same domain. Elon's technique makes sense, but you can't just do that. The most impressive people seem to be T-shaped: they have very deep understanding of their specialty, but they also a familiarity with a wide breadth of fields. I skim a bunch of technical software books that are not immediately useful to me. My goal is not to remember every detail, it's just to get an idea of what's out there, and where to find more information if I need it.