In the broad, reading books is worth it. Not every book. Not even most of them. (It's helpful to avoid the sunk-cost fallacy. You've already incurred whatever c

In the broad, reading books is worth it. Not every book. Not even most of them. (It's helpful to avoid the sunk-cost fallacy. You've already incurred whatever cost or risk came with obtaining the book--it's fine to give it the lesser of 1/5th or 50 pages to hook you, and move on if it doesn't.) I find that I'm more generative than usual (i.e., I become a fountain of creative ideas) when I'm reading an engaging book. In the specific, it depends who you are (generally, but also like at a specific time) and what you're looking for. I think there is value in reading Great Works, but I've also read plenty of them that I found boring and unrewarding. Maybe a better place to start is with a deep (but general-audience-friendly) dive into an event, place, time, person, thing, or technology that you've either found intriguing for a long time, or find yourself surprised that you've never heard about. Looking for something narrow (i.e., probably not a war or a country or an industry--but maybe a battle, person, unit, company, neighborhood) may help you filter for books on topics that the writer also found deeply engaging.