Reading Books Just a Few Years Old

 I realized a few things about my reading in the last year. One is to stop be pretentious about my reading. I like what I like. I should stop faking liking high-brow things.

What I want to mention today, though, is that I prefer to read books a few years old. I can only read 25-35 books a year. I can't keep up with the deluge of books around me. When I realized how little time I had to read, I realized that I wanted to read quality. 

Some people take that to mean reading only really old books. I can't and won't do that only (I did just read Sense and Sensibility, though). I like what I like, remember?

When I read only the latest books, I realized that I often read books that weren't that great and wouldn't stand the test of time. The author would be on a podcast, and the book sounded great and timely. I would read the book and find that it wasn't a book that I would recommend to others. Books that are a few years old have the benefit of other people reading and recommending them. If the book isn't talked about 5 years after publication, then it wasn't worth it. So one of my loose rules is to wait a few years after publication before buying and reading a book.


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