I think that it's not the quality of the reading that a person does that's the most important, but rather, it's the purpose of the reading it in the first place that matters most.
I've never been a huge fiction reader, but I wouldn't say that they don't have their place because there are some greatly moving fiction books out there that can be life changing in terms of eliciting an emotional response from the reader and they broaden your range of thinking. Technical books are great for learning a skill, but without a direction for those skills, you’re stuck being a drone.
Regarding the suggestion that books somehow inhibit natural creative ideas from flowing is not necessarily true in my opinion. I'd venture to say that the less reading you do will inhibit natural creativity because then you are formulating ideas without a firm grasp on the entire subject.
The more reading you do, the more "tid-bits" of ideas you begin to collect inside your head from each author and a by reading more, you begin to attain a better grasp of the subject matter that you are reading, which in effect, starts to transform you into an expert yourself in that given field and by having that expertise in your pocket, you can better analyze the subjects being presented as well as spot flaws in theories and adapt those ideas with your own perspectives instead of accepting everything as the truth. Reading is knowledge and knowledge has the power to reshape your paradigm.
Don’t Confuse the Message with the Medium
Remember that reading is simply a medium of communication, just like television or talking with another person. The medium is inconsequential. It’s the message that matters the most. The value of the message being delivered is it’s ability to produce a positive change in your life. Of course, that message can impact your life negatively as well, so I agree with being selective with the messages that you choose to digest.
Varying Ideas & Perspectives Spark Thinking
One of the great things about reading is that you learn another person’s perspective on a given subject and it might be framed in a way that you have not thought of before. Or you might find it to be totally false. Or you might get offended by their views. In any respect, their ideas make you think for yourself and it forces you to either accept it or not, but that serves to strengthen or reshape your own views on that subject.
Junk Reading is Not Junk if it Serves a Purpose
Even the so-called “junk” reading can be beneficial if it serves a purpose. That purpose might be entertainment or relaxation for example. To make another comparison, I almost always listen to audio books in my car when I’m driving because I think my “University on Wheels” is one of the greatest learning environments around. However, there are times when I want to relax or change my emotions and I’ll listen to my favorite music instead. Do I learn anything from listening to music? Not hardly, but it does serve the purpose of taking care of my needs. Reading is simply a different medium, but same idea.
Junk is Relative
Remember the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” (or something to that effect). If what you read serves a purpose then really it doesn’t become junk anymore. I used to think reading newspapers and getting junk mail were wasted and often unsolicited pieces of word-processing, but now I love to read both newspapers and junk mail. Why? Because now I’ve gotten into writing press releases and designing direct response advertising and those pieces of junk become very valuable teaching tools for my own professional development. Now I take a look at a piece of junk mail and I study it and figure out why the marketer used certain words or designed it a certain way and why it works or doesn’t, so it becomes an educational tool for me now that creates positive change in my life—hence it is good.
80/20 Rule Towards Reading
I totally agree with the views here so far, I think that the 80/20 rule directly applies to what you read—that 80 percent of the value you will get from your reading efforts will come from the 20 percent of the materials you choose to read, so be selective with reading and focus on those “big rocks” that will deliver the most value to your life at that given moment.
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