Wanna Read More Books? parts 17 – 19

Ryan Holiday, the author of 15 books, including The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, Conspiracy and Stillness is the Key, calls himself a professional reader. “ That’s really what authors are. A book is made of books.” Some reading rules he has followed over the years:

17) If a book sucks, stop reading it. The best readers actually quit a lot of books. Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy reading.

18) The rule I like is ‘one hundred pages minus your age.’ Say you’re 30 years old—if a book hasn’t captivated you by page 70, stop reading it. So as you age, you have less time to endure crap.

19) Embrace serendipity. So many of my favorite books are just random things I grabbed at bookstores (this is why I say don’t sweat buying a book–just roll the dice). That’s what bookstores are for, what I’ve tried to build mine around. It’s a discovery engine better than any algorithm.