Pete's Log: reading
Entry #1686, (Books, Writing, n such)(posted when I was 31 years old.)
Tyler Cowen has some interesting observations on reading.
I've long been the sort to feel a commitment to books, feeling compelled to finish them. The downside of this is that when I come across one that doesn't hold my interest, I end up not reading any books at all for a while, since I don't want to start a new one before finishing the current one. Based on what Tyler has to say, I will be more ruthless in discarding unappealing books.
I considered taking this approach recently with The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which I had picked up as a single volume edition. A few dozen pages into the book I was already finding it hard to keep up with all the characters and plots and such. But instead of giving up on the book, I simply decided instead that I was not going to try to understand it. So I just powered through. Without the constraint of needing to understand what I was reading, I actually enjoyed the book. I'm not entirely sure if that's a positive review or not.
Before Illuminatus, I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which I finished in under a day. Definitely recommended, though not exactly a happy book.
Before that I read the first two books of the Millennium Trilogy, which I found entertaining enough, if a bit implausible.
Currently I'm rereading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as well as reading a book on the Oracle cost-based optimizer that is actually somewhat entertaining.
Anyway, from the completely useless statistics department, here's an overview of how much I've bought from amazon:
My first amazon order was I Will Fear No Evil by Robert Heinlein on May 28, 1997.