hi, i’m chris.
I’m a DIY book blogger and pathological reader who also works as a cross-border financial planner. Originally from the United States, I’m now based in London.
I help fellow bookworms dive even deeper into their favorite books by exploring the ideas and lessons behind the stories.
Learning From Literature is where I share what I discover from the 100+ fiction and nonfiction books I read each year, from self-help and science fiction to mystery and Mexican short stories.
Whether you’ve read one book this year or one hundred, I’m glad you’re here.
about the blog.
I started Learning From Literature in my college dorm while majoring in financial planning, which meant I had absolutely no idea how to build a website. Everything here has been a process of figuring things out as I went.
I’d been taking notes on the books I read and following other blogs for years. But when I moved away to college, I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about them. It turns out, not many people read 152 books the year they turn 18.
The early days of the blog were mostly me enthusiastically force-feeding my favorite books to a nonexistent audience. What can I say? I’m passionate.
I eventually realized that a book can be deeply important to your life even if it isn’t a page-turner that keeps you glued to your chair for eight hours. I’ve read books with awkward writing but transformational ideas, and beautifully written books whose sentences I still remember even though I’ve long forgotten the plot. I stopped caring so much about whether a book was “good” and became much more interested in what it was trying to say. To go deeper.
Today on Learning from Literature, you’ll find essays connecting ideas across books, reflections on the act of reading itself, reading lists in my favorite genres, and bullet-style notes from nonfiction books.
Above all, I hope this is a place where you have fun exploring books, whether you’re looking for your next great read, revisiting an old favorite, or leaving with an idea worth carrying with you.
about me.
As a kid, I disappeared into books. My parents took away my e-reader instead of my iPod as punishment, and teachers confiscated my books so I’d pay attention in class. I’d sit alone in our home library, the only one awake in the house, reading for hours. Literature was like a third parent; it shaped how I see the world.
The easy answer to why I read is that I’ve always done it. The truer answer is that I love borrowing someone’s senses for a while — seeing the world through their eyes, living a different life, and coming back with a new perspective.
I can spend a night as a chef in 1990s New York through Kitchen Confidential, move to a small California valley in East of Eden, experience life in an ancient empire through Aztec, grow up in the American South during Jim Crow through I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, or find my way back from addiction through a journey along the Pacific Crest Trail in Wild. Reading is another way of exploring the world.
That curiosity has always been part of who I am. I was the kind of person who saved Pinterest photos and designed my dream home library at 15, despite being decades away from ever building a house.
It’s also why I became a financial planner and moved to London. I wanted to build a life with room for the things that matter to me: books, travel, jiu jitsu, cooking, time with my girlfriend, and work that helps other people do the same.
Whether through financial planning or Learning From Literature, the goal is mutual: helping people build lives they care about.
favorite reads.
