Books Worth Reading

JR Hay

Sometimes I get the feeling that most of the books which line the shelves of libraries and cap the coffee tables of the world are worthless, or, at the very least redundant. I include my own writings at the top of this landfill of literature, along with all of the self-help, mass produced fiction, shallow nonfiction, etc… Depending on how you stretch the definition of a book, I would surmise that there are more books written than humans alive to read them. Often these books collect dust in your local used bookstore, a place whose business it seems is to collect mediocre works, sprinkling in a great classic of Dostoevsky or collection of letters by Malcom X between rows and rows of mediocrity. This is a pitiful state to be in, loathing the chance that fifty pages in you realize you’re rereading a regurgitated Ayn Rand or that the cutting-edge information of 1986 has long been outdated. Such a feeling can deter one from even starting a new book, paralyzed by the task of choosing the needles from a haystack. I often find myself in this state and would perer to avoid it in the future, I would like to be able to find books worth reading with a method that is both efficient and both highly repeatable, without of course sacrificing a diversity of subjects or authors. How can I achieve this… I do not know, but I have assembled a respectable cadre of semi-successful methods.

            “Social-mediafying” my book search through services like Goodreads has helped to an extent. I can determine the absolute slogs from a baseline of decency through the user rating system. An out of five-star rating system however did not help me to avoid the confounding slush of “101 and essays that will change the way you think”. That book got a rating of 3.75, not great but far from terrible. For comparison Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography has a rating of just 3.86. Now I don’t want to drag Brianna Wiest’s name through the mud. I am sure that the book was enjoyed by many and helped a lot of people elevate from their closed perspectives, however it was not for me. Goodreads couldn’t possibly reflect that in an anonymous out of five-star rating system.

            Another resource I always attempt to tap into is recommendations from friends. I came to Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cats Cradle” by this method and both were excellent reads. I believe this method is the best I have found thus far but it carries with it implicit limitations. The first of which being that you must have friends to receive recommendations. With more and more people choosing to spend leisure time watching videos, films, or scrolling feeds, less books are coming to me by way of endorsement. Not only am I limited by the quantity of actively practicing literate friends I have, but also by the types of friends I have. If I rely solely on books within my social circle I am confining my knowledge base and promoting a herd  mentality. There is nothing wrong with having a shared perspective and culture but it isn’t advisable to remain in this shell ceaselessly.

            Finally, when all hope is lost, and my apathy is at its highest I take the gamblers route. I walk into a bookstore or library and play the slots. Pruning through tall, rowed shelves to find unlikely gyms is an exhilaration of its own. I have found great works with relatively small readership this way. “Nihilism and Technology” by Nolen Gertz comes to mind, a book which impacted my thinking so intensely that I cannot imagine how I thought before reading. Many trot out the saying “Never judge a book by its cover” incessantly but in its literal sense it is often the only method in a world filled with so many. Just like a gambler it is more often than not that you don’t find the gym and instead are stuck with, uninspired, unrelatable, and downright non-factual reads.

            Of course, unless artificial intelligence reaches ambivalence, I doubt there will ever be a method to find something good to read. Maybe this seeming law of nature is a good thing, how else would new writers gain ground, bad pieces inspire greatness, or someone learn how to use a first-generation blackberry without these “worthless” books taking up space.