Reading, physical reading with one’s own eyes is sine qua non for a real entry into the vast terrains of knowledge. Read physical text physically. If not physical texts , then go to virtual medium and read. “ Reading makes a full man.” - Francis Bacon,’Of Studies’. Reading is part of a culture to reach dizzy heights of excellence. These thoughts are triggered by an article in ‘The Atlantic ‘ where the pioneer newspaper has done a commendable service to remind the budding generations of a means to lofty ends. 
Learning without reading is like swimming without water. You don’t swim at all. So with learning. Francis Bacon’s essay ‘Of Studies’ is worth mentioning here again ,worth reading for all who pursue knowledge. In the essay Bacon tells,
“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.”
This is an advice by a jurist par excellence who was a voracious reader, felicitous speaker and a spontaneous writer whose major  works were in Latin; but the brief and quintessential essays in English ,qualified as ‘ dispersed meditations’, showcase his fund of knowledge, all acquired “ through the spectacles of books.” Bacon, high priest of learning says with authority as to how to approach books chosen for reading. 
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
Reading converges all fine faculties like curiosity, memory, intelligence, wisdom, sense and sensibility, and together all these moulds a sterling personality. So for a successful scholar wide, deep and serious reading is a Hobbson’s Choice- a choice without alternative.