Thursday, March 19, 2009

A book's Blue Book value

Rob laments about a book and wonders where to stop reading. It's a hard decision to make and I've seen (and discussed) this with other reviewers before. Me personally, I prefer to use the 10% Rule. Simply put, I'll read the first 10% of the book and if it is still entertaining, I'll continue to read it.

I just tend to ignore my own rule though. I'll read, to the end, nearly every book I pick up. There are a few exceptions, but I do like to finish what I start. It's like sex. The first 10% is foreplay and I certainly don't want to stop there. I need to finish to see how it turns out. It may be horrid, but it may be the best ever. Besides, I don't want to get Blue Book, right?

Yes, I realized I just compared reading to sex. I was speaking metaphorically, not literally. And no, my jokes usually aren't funny, so if you didn't laugh, you were probably in the majority.

2 comments:

RobB said...

Blue Book value of a book - interesting concept. The other metaphor, well...

The book I was reading and gave up on had a blue cover.

Neil Richard said...

Last year I used a similar method for rating the books I read (http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pALT1epWnqY7Si1NnnKScSw&hl=en), but I called it "net worth" because I was comparing what I paid for it against what I felt it was actually worth.

While I enjoyed most of the books, I felt that most were worth less than what I paid for them. Who knows, maybe the ALA will do their own version of NADA on books.