TL;DR

Yes. It's a must.

The majority of books I read are non-tech books as I can learn better from videos and actually doing what I learned.

From what I've learned/read, creativity stems from connecting dots in your brain. One of the books I read talks about how words we use are grouped together in our brain (words you use for programming, such as JavaScript, Web, coffee are stored near each other while words like truck, sky, fan, etc are stored far from where tech words are stored).

I believe reading books would help you bridge gaps between words/ideas you normally don't use together. (another way is to use analogies daily by using words/ideas that are not related. As a simple/contrived example, "Her eyes are as blue as sky". Eyes & Sky are not related and rarely associated together. And your brain would try to create an association between those two words).

While reading books, if you might run into situations you've never considered before, thus brain creates association between gap of what you know & just read/learned.

So the gist is, reading should be a must IMO.
(Sorry I didn't have time to edit it to make the reply shorter).

I feel that reading, in general, is important. How and what type of information you consume is up to you. I mostly read tech/startup/science/math related books, but I've started to pick up slightly non-technical books over the years. With my limited time, I can't get myself to read outside of those areas (other than news). What about you? Would you recommend reading something outside of tech?

If we're talking about books in general yes, I couldn't live without them, on paper or in electronic form, I read quite a bit.

I love being transported for hundreds of pages in a well written fictional story. The character building, the mastery of the language, the clear OCD great writers have... if you combine it with the fact that most great fiction is just a metaphor on the real world (of the past, present or possible future)... well books are amazing!

If we're talking about tech books, I don't read that many anymore. I still value books about fundamentals but in general the size, the hefty price, the short span life and the impracticality of reading them in PDF makes me shy away from tech books favoring articles, tutorials, documentation and in-depth essays, or even reading source code. And to be honest, some tech writers who write books aren't good at writing books and this is a no-no for me as you might have guessed :-D I still have books bought in a frenzy that are basically the online documentation of the technology with some comments here and there. No thanks.

Absolutely yes, We need to read more books, articles, guides whatever you want or you prefer, I think this helps us to improve on different ways.

In my case my English is not fluent, so every night I try to read one article about something that is my interest also I try to write little articles and shared with the community for improving my English.

But yes I am sure that is necessary to read more.

Yes. Reading books, the kind with no hyperlinks or any mechanism that allows you to jump from thought to thought, promotes deep thought and concentration which we need for learning. Learning happens in the space where the brain can concentrate and can operate uninterrupted. There are many books about this, a few that comes to mind are;

• Focus, by D. Goleman
• The Shallows, by N. Carr
• Deep Work, by C. Newport

I don't like see much TV. So I need keep a book near to me and not only tech/programming books.

I like read SciFi, Fantasy, Mystery, Mythology and Terror books because give me another vision about the world (or other Worlds) and afford problems in a different way than usual.

One little book that change my mind was Nightfall (Asimov).

There is too much garbage on the Internet. The only way to get accurate verified non-opinionated information today is to take a good old book.

Never stop learning.

In this career in computer science (and other tech-related areas) not only reading is a must but being very selective with the books being read and also any other sources of learning.

For me it is a must.

1. I just plain enjoy reading, I could be called a voracious reader. Software, psychology, biography and science fiction are my main genres.
2. For me it is a good way to learn new things, which we all need to do in this profession. It can be tech or non-tech. I mix it with online courses, mainly pluralsight and the linux foundation.

One thing I will say is it has to be active reading, for lack of a better word.
I make notes all over my books, reviewing what I have written after every reading session and chapter, making notes of further reading and how i can apply it to work.