Reading Books

We've been taught that once we start something we have to finish it. And I think that so often we view books as this linear thing. Whereas I think a different view of books is, what information do I need out of book right now? Is that an entertainment read? Do I need to read from start to finish? Is it a read where I'm comparing different views on a similar problem? Especially across non-fiction. Am I comparing and contrasting two or three different authors' argumentation or authors' views on a particular angle to a subject? In which case, I might not need to read the whole book. I just need to read a chapter. But then I've gotten everything out of that book. The books are there to serve you, right? You own the book. The book is your property. It's your mental property. It's your physical property. And you can do with it what you want. You don't have to feel bad about putting down a book. It's the author's job to pull you into the book. It's your job to extract what you need out of the book. And I think that extracting what you need, you can just read the table of contents, read the introduction, maybe read the conclusion, and skim a little bit.