I’m a first-generation entrepreneur committed to learning as much about entrepreneurship as I can. The best way I’ve found to do that is to study entrepreneurs. So, every week, I read a book I’ve read about or heard about from an entrepreneur; they’re mostly biographies. I post my latest read every Sunday in the Library on this site.

In May, I watched an interview with Gary Hoover, founder of Hoover’s Inc., which went public in 1999 and was sold to Dun & Bradstreet for $117 million; BOOKSTOP, which was sold to Barnes & Nobles; and the American Business History Center. In that interview, Hoover discussed his personal library of 70,000 books and his approach to learning through reading. And he wrote a book on this topic, The Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning. I’m always looking for ways to improve my approach to learning, so I bought a copy.

The book is a practical framework for learning through reading. It reminds me of Mortimer Adler’s book How to Read a Book, except it’s for people who read to solve problems and generate ideas (e.g., entrepreneurs and investors). Here are my favorite sections of this book:

• Hoover’s list of the top 160 books you should know about
• How information flow (sharing what you learn) enhances your learning
• How you can compound what you learn on the internet with books
• How the key to success is seeing or understanding something others don’t, which often requires looking where others don’t look
• The five ways we learn
• How to leverage network thinking
• How breakthrough innovations come from combining two well-known ideas that no one considered putting together—connecting the seemingly unconnected is the secret of the genius

I enjoyed other sections of this book too, so this isn’t a comprehensive list.

Anyone interested in multidisciplinary learning or how to read and learn more effectively should consider this book. It’s a great complement to How to Read a Book.