Thoughts on Reading
Jorge Luis Borges says:
“…if a book is tedious to you, don’t read it; that book was not written for you…. look for personal happiness, personal enjoyment. It is the only way to read.”
This is a very pithy rule but it is very powerful and true.
When I started blogging in 2002, I used to be a listicle freak. I will follow the year end lists or lists from popular bloggers. Then buy the books and literally plough through them. But many a times, I have felt it like a huge ordeal in completing those books.
Some of the mistakes I did in those times are:
Not stopping reading the books that I didn’t find interesting and slogging through it. It was a bias of not judging the content of the book and simply trusting the authority of the writer.
Sticking to just reading one book instead of reading multiple books at a time. I used to read a lot of blogs and opinion about that book, instead of reading the actual book and judging it.
Selecting the books to read on a topics that I was remotely aware of and not hugely enthusiastic about. These books used to be the classics in literature or something about an influential theory like post-modernism.