When you visit a bookstore looking for a good read – you’d stop to see ones on the Best Seller shelf.

How about browsing Amazon’s ‘Best Books of the Month’? Or scrolling through the ‘Popular on Audible’ list.

Because it’s a safe bet. The Best Sellers are what everyone is reading. And if everyone is reading them, surely they must be good, yes?

Social proof – at its best.

‘Opportunists’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ know this. If you visit Lazada, you’ll find tons of bootlegged books (usually ebooks and recordings) up for sale.

Just because it’s available for purchase, doesn’t make it alright to buy it.

Why is this book bundle (and hundreds of others) allowed to be sold – is a subject for another day.

But know this when it comes to reading. As beautifully quoted by Murakami:

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.