On reading badly
I was taught, as most people are, that reading a book means starting at page one and continuing until the end. This is a reasonable rule for novels. For almost everything else it is a trap, and it is the single biggest reason people who want to read more end up reading less.
The cost of the completion norm
The norm says: if you start a book, finish it. The effect of the norm is that starting a book becomes a serious commitment, so you start fewer of them. You end up with a shelf of intimidating unread volumes and a private sense of failure, which is not a productive relationship to have with information.
The alternative norm is simpler. A book is a resource, not an obligation.
Some numbers I find clarifying. Suppose an academic book takes eight hours to read properly, and suppose that in a given year I could plausibly find a hundred hours for this kind of reading:
| Strategy | Books touched | Books finished | Ideas encountered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read every book fully | 12 | 12 | ~12 arguments, deeply |
| Skim 40, read 6 fully | 46 | 6 | ~46 arguments, 6 deeply |
The second row is better for almost every purpose except examinations. You cannot know in advance which six books deserve the eight hours; the only way to find out is to sample widely.
How to read badly, in order
- Read the conclusion first. If the conclusion is uninteresting, the argument for it is also uninteresting to you, today.
- Read the introduction second. Between the two you have the whole shape of the book.
- Read the table of contents as an argument. Chapter titles are the author telling you the steps. If a step surprises you, that is the chapter to read.
- Read one middle chapter closely. This tells you whether the author is careful. If they are not, stop.
- Stop. Most of the time, stopping here is the correct decision, and the four steps above took forty minutes.
The part that took me longest to accept
Abandoning a book feels like a judgement about the book. It almost never is. It is a judgement about the fit between the book and what you happen to need this month. The same book that is useless in March may be exactly the thing in October, and you will only know that because you spent forty minutes on it in March.
I now keep a short list of books I stopped reading and why. It is the most useful list I have.