Seconding this, except I learned the hard way that (1) there is a world of difference between books, such that reading the best ones may end up being one the gr

Seconding this, except I learned the hard way that (1) there is a world of difference between books, such that reading the best ones may end up being one the greatest things to ever happen to you, and reading some of the less good ones can arguably make you less smart than you were before you started reading, that (2) someone else's opinion is not always the best way to determine which book is good, and that (3) the selection one reads while in school is often biased to fulfill pedagogic purposes, so one has to do some independent searching.