(no subject)

[wolffyluna]

My to-read list is too long. This is very much a 21st Century, First World problem! Oh, to have access to so many books that having “too many” to read is a problem, what an indignity!

But my to read list is too long, and I keep getting stuck in the branching paths of the decision tree, and end up not reading anything because I get decision paralysis. Which is not ideal.

I thought about listing out books I could read, and seeing what people recommended-- but that would require listing out the whole of the too read list, which is, as mentioned before, Long.

So, instead of asking people what book they would suggest I read next, I’m going to ask what strateg/ies people think I should use for picking, which seems eminently more practical to list out.

Strategies:

• Use a random number generator to choose
• Prioritise books based on popularity
• Write a pared down list, ask what people would recommend based on that pared down list (a variant on the popularity metric)
• Prioritise based on obscurity/unpopularity
• Prioritise fiction
• Prioritise non-fiction
• Prioritise reading physical books, because once I have read them I can decide whether to keep them, or whether they should go in the ‘go to a second hand shop pile’
• Prioritise electronic books, because I am more able to read them a bit at a time on my phone

Comments

[contrarianarchon]

Ooh this is a Hard Problem - I stalled out heavily on reading paper books in part because I ended up reading based on what seemed most interesting and that selected the contents of my reading list down to the least interesting books that I still considered worth reading (and I didn't want to buy more while I still had this pile of books to read, so there wasn't new blood).

Right now I'm doing "electronic documents, in order of age (as in, when they were saved to my computer, not date of creation) from the oldest to newest", which is working decently well.

[chocochipbiscuit]

Depends entirely on your mood! I go in swings where I prefer what I'm reading to change; if I've been reading a lot of fiction, for example, I'll swing hard into nonfiction for a while, just to get some balance.

Or, if there's something specific I want to research/get inspired by for fic purposes, I'll tailor my reading around that.

Admittedly, these are all very good problems to have!