First is selection.

How do you pick what you want to read? It’s a simple question I expect to have a simple answer. I pick a book that I think might be interesting. 

Now, what I find interesting depends on specific situations. I started reading a Hunter S. Thompson book a few weeks back. I had read he was a good writer from other writers I liked. I learned he was the inspiration for filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Van Neistat. 

That was enough for me to pick up one of his books. I asked Google which one was the most popular and I picked the one the crowd recommended. 

I think people should read what they want to read. Turns out, we like to overcomplicate such a simple task. We overcomplicate it by feeling like we have to pick the “best” book. The irony is that such a criteria is subjective. Yet, herd mentality kicks in and we want to read the book on some list that tells us what are the best books. 

We proceed to read it after it was carefully selected. We forget that we have plenty of time to read other books. Maybe we forget that because we think we are committed after we read the first page.

Second is quitting.

I have dozens of books on the shelf I’ve read as little as three pages to as much as ~120 pages. I learned a rule of thumb for giving the author “benefit of the doubt” is 100 pages less your age. 

That means a 20-year-old should read 80 pages before quitting the book while an 80-year-old will give in 20 pages. Time is scarce for the old and they get to demand more from the author. 

Like selection, when to quit should have a simple answer. I think it’s when the book is no longer interesting. I thought it would be interesting, but it no longer is. 

Time is scarce whether you are old or young. It doesn’t make sense for me to give more time to a book I don’t care for anymore. 

That wasn’t always the case. I don’t know if it’s the “achiever” personality of wanting to tick all the boxes, but I wanted to finish what I started. The old “don’t be a quitter!” 

It was silly. People who are great at something had to quit doing everything else. Quitting is a must so we can do other things worth doing. 

Let’s say I went into a restaurant because it looked interesting. I thought I would like it. I ordered a dish and I hated it. But everyone else liked it so I tried it again. I hated the second dish I got. I could say I don’t want to be a quitter and try every dish at the restaurant. That would be stupid. 

I think that’s the same as not quitting a book once it’s lost my interest. Einstein said insanity was doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. No matter how famous the author or the book, if it doesn’t interest me, I should quit. 

There are too many books out there and too little time. It’s okay if my tastes are different than the top 100 books list. Most of those are bullshit anyway. 

I say all this but I still have to force myself to quit books. I tell myself it’s not worth it. I tell myself no doesn’t mean never and I can come back to it. I know that and I’m sure the book knows that too. We both know it’s something that needs to be done.