[thehealthycoder]

I'm a big fan of rereading the same books that I found super helpful/useful, vs reading a lot

Used to do the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge for multiple years, until I felt I was just padding my stats with books that weren't useful

Then I saw a Naval tweet that was: "I would rather read the best 100 books over and over again until I absorb them rather than read all the books.”

And I adopted that strategy, which has been more useful for me

[serjester]

The hardest part is knowing which 100 books to reread.

I'd like to think there's a period in your youth when you devour everything - even, god forbid, modern books on management. From here you move on to the classics - Dickens, Twain, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald. If a book bores you, drop it. After enough years, inevitably, you reach a point where you're ready for real literature - Dostoevsky, Proust, Molière, Kant - the greats.

Some books can't be summarized (poetry and real literature), some can be compressed to about ten pages and the majority to 0 pages.

[thehealthycoder]

Totally agree, feel like it comes down to an exploration vs exploitation optimization.

Don't have an answer unfortunately, still looking for one myself!

I do agree with the method you describe: taking the recommendations of others, and then later navigating toward what you feel is best for yourself

[giantg2]

"The hardest part is knowing which 100 books to reread."

Not if you're like me - my total number read is only about that many in my adult life (other than textbooks and reference books).

[redelbee]

This is a good insight, and I sometimes worry I am just optimizing for quantity instead of quality.

That said, how would you pick the “best 100 books” to reread?I also tend to reread things that I enjoyed in the past but it seems like there might be a better way to go about this. I do read from a lot of the “Best books of all time” type of lists and I don’t find a markedly higher success rate with that strategy.

[loughnane]

I made this comment above, but it fits here too. I totally agree with rereading books.

I can’t remember the source, but I like the saying “if a book isn’t worth reading twice it’s probably not worth reading once”