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So many books, so little time

=== Who has time to read Plutarch and Montaigne? ===

So many books

There is an incredible, almost infinite, number of books out there. When choosing what to read, it is not possible to look at each and every book.

And every day we discover new, interesting books ...

How much you can read

The number of books we can read is limited. How many books you can read per year, of course varies from person to person, and from year to year.

Maybe you are a fast reader, maybe not.
Maybe you currently have a lot of energy, maybe not.
Maybe you are in a phase in your life, where there is not much room for reading.
Some books have only 200 pages, others 800.
And so on.

But let us say that on average, you can read about 40 books per year, which comes down to probably less than 3,000 books in a life time. Some books deserve to be re-read, which lowers the number of unique books to read in a life time.

Consider where you are in life, and do the math. See how many books you can read in the remaining of your life (under the assumption you will keep on living into old age).

Spend your time wisely

We have to be careful how to spend our time. Keep the wise words of Annie Dillard in mind:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

This means there is no room for books we don't enjoy (when reading for pleasure) or books that are not that interesting (when reading intentionally).

Reading list

Because there are too many books and there is not enough time to read every good book, we have to be ruthless in choosing what to read. We need to have some plan, and that is why people have a reading list.

A reading list can be composed of books that have been recommended or because a review of a book looked promising. If you are into intentional reading, your reading list is a kind of implementation plan. A reading list helps to choose the next book.

A reading list should not be set in stone, with every change of our interests, different books become interesting.

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. (Haruki Murakami in " Norwegian wood")

Rules

I do think that intentional reading is important, as well as reading for pleasure.

Currently, my reading list contains more than 200 books, and I have discovered that this is almost as bad as having no list at all. Because of this I want to ditch my reading list and come up with another plan.

Renaming the "reading list" to "reading plan" leads to a paradigm shift. When setting up an actionable plan, three months is often long enough. Calculating with an average of 40 books per year, a plan for the next three months consists of ten books.

Thinking about everything above, I came to the following six rules for my self:

1. Choose carefully what to read, and always check some reviews first.
2. Prefer books that are at least ten years old and have stand the test of time.
3. Keep a small reading plan with not more than ten books.
4. Review the reading plan at least every three months.
5. It is OK to read books that are not on the reading plan (but remember rules #1 and #2).
6. Abandon books that don't bring joy or are not as interesting as expected.

To create a selection of only books that have stand the test of time, Gutenberg.org can be a great source.

What are your rules?

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$Date: 2022/05/25 15:32:39 $

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