My Framework for Reading Books

In the past 2 yrs, I've read over 100 books.

Through it all, I've learned that there are a lot of crappy "Best Selling" books out there.

This has led to hours of reading books in hopes that they will get better (the more I read them) but knowing that they won't.

Here's a framework I created to solve for this:

1/ only take book recs from other active readers, people who regularly invest in learning, mentors, or other people who I genuinely respect their opinion or their relationship with self-development.

2/ if a book sucks after reading it for a few chapters (usually about 25-40% of the book) then just put it down or return it. It is very unlikely that it will magically get better in the second half.

3/ tons of books have one MAYBE two main concepts they're trying to get across. I've found that many of these could be summarized in 50-75 pages but the authors include tons of stories to beef up the size of the book to 200-300 pages. once the concept is understood, move on.

4/ never skip the intro/prologue. I've found that it usually provides a good amount of context or mental framing that the author would like for you to have as you dive into the book.

5/ lastly, never recommend crappy books to other people. I've learned that the more high-quality books I recommend to others, the more high-quality books are recommended to me.

5.5/ that last one was very subjective. a book CAN be good to one person but crappy to another. but most people can agree when a book is really bad. and by recommending those types of books to others, people will take your word less seriously