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Old 05-22-2018, 07:23 AM   #1
latepaul
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Book Speed Dating

So I better define my terms, because this was something I heard about the other day on a podcast, and when I went back and googled the term I came up with something slightly different.

The google results were to do with an actual event, usually arranged by a school or library, with books on tables and cards you fill out and so on. So like actual speed-dating but with books instead of people. The idea being to find your next book based on a quick sample read.

The podcast version was simply this: take a bunch of books, read the first 50 pages (or 10% or whatever) and decide based on that whether to keep the book or discard it.

It's really the later I wanted to talk about. It intrigues me as a way to cut down the TBR and weed out some of the chaff I know is in there.

I'm tempted to try it with say 10 books and see how I get on. Thing is if I decide I'm enjoying a book, am I going to be able to set it aside to finish sampling the other 9? Also, am I willing to be ruthless enough?

Has anyone else tried it? If so, how did it go? What rules did you set yourself?
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Old 05-22-2018, 08:10 AM   #2
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My seat of the pants reaction is that this would work better in real space as with the google results.

Virtually, if you're enjoying a book you'd be a chump to put it down and move on because of The Rules. You'd lose your momentum and possibly that moment of engagement and would you go back and reread at the end of the experiment or pick up where you left off?

Also, 50 pages or 10% is far too much for a stinker, but I suppose even The Rules wouldn't make you last it out that far. However, my reaction to a borderline response is that you'd probably best be served by jettisoning that, too. There are a lot of books out there. Generally speaking, as proposed I think too much good reading time is being invested here to little purpose.

If you want to cut a TBR, I think it's relatively easy to make those first draconian cuts; realistically there are books you know you'll never feel like reading and probably many that you can't even remember why you got them in the first place. Other than that, I think you've just got to be willing to abandon a book early. And, of course, be much more circumspect about future purchases!
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Old 05-22-2018, 08:19 AM   #3
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I'm not even going to read a sample unless the book description sounds interesting. If the description sounds good and I'm familiar with the author and know I've previously enjoyed his/her work, I'll go ahead and check out the book (I read mostly library books). If the description sounds good and it's an author I'm unfamiliar with, I will read at least part of the available sample. I have rejected some books based on the sample and been glad I didn't waste a checkout! As soon as I find one or two books that look interesting I will check those books out and start reading. I'm not going to go through 10 samples in a row. But if you think the speed-testing process might work for you, go for it! and let us know how it works out.
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Old 05-22-2018, 08:24 AM   #4
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The last thing I need to do is find more books to read.
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Old 05-22-2018, 08:34 AM   #5
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Nancy Pearl's rule is to read at least 50 pages if you're under 50 years old. If you're older, then subtract your age from 100 and read that many pages before giving up.
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Old 05-22-2018, 09:03 AM   #6
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Napoleon's dictum applies here - Ask anything of me but time. There are way too many good books out that for me to waste time on a bad book. It generally takes far less than 50 pages for me to get a good feel for a book or an author.
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Old 05-22-2018, 09:59 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BenG View Post
Nancy Pearl's rule is to read at least 50 pages if you're under 50 years old. If you're older, then subtract your age from 100 and read that many pages before giving up.
Wait a sec.
My mother-in law would have to WRITE a page
(she hit the Century mark, last year )
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Old 05-22-2018, 10:35 AM   #8
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I don't think the first part of a book is a reliable sample of whether or not a book is going to hold my interest. I like to flip through and read a section about halfway through, maybe a little more or a little less, depending on how big the book is. (It's hard to to this with ebooks that insist on only showing the first part of a book. Amazon's "look inside" for print books is more random and I use that whenever it is available.)

That said, this sounds a lot like what I do when I'm looking for my next book to read, where I'm in the bookstore or the library and I read a random sample of some book and I think it sounds like a neat idea. I would sign up for it, as long as I could read any part of the book that I wanted and was not limited to the beginning.

Like everyone else, I have a large TBR list, but my tastes change, and I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to discover a book I might enjoy now for the sake of a book that I chose in the past.

It sounds like you want to apply this principle to the books already in your TBR; but the difference (to me) is that even if you reject the TBR books, it doesn't make sense to get rid of them completely because preferences change, and a book you didn't care for today might be one you can't get enough of in a few months. I couldn't do it, because I would want to read something in the middle and that's awkward with ebooks.

Last edited by sakura-panda; 05-22-2018 at 10:37 AM.
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Old 05-22-2018, 11:00 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sakura-panda View Post
Like everyone else, I have a large TBR list, but my tastes change, and I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to discover a book I might enjoy now for the sake of a book that I chose in the past.

It sounds like you want to apply this principle to the books already in your TBR; but the difference (to me) is that even if you reject the TBR books, it doesn't make sense to get rid of them completely because preferences change, and a book you didn't care for today might be one you can't get enough of in a few months.
That tastes change is the predominant reason for not acquiring a large TBR. My own experience is that love doesn't come back and that once I'm over something, I'm over it for good. And if the point is to reduce one's TBR, the cuts have to come somewhere. It's still a WIP, but I get more satisfaction from a "muscular" TBR, chock-full of books that I'm dying to read, the formerly appealing ones having been weeded out. In the long run, I'd still be happier even if I found that I'd deleted the odd book that it turned out I wanted to read after all.
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Old 05-22-2018, 11:04 AM   #10
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This is what I do when browsing a sale at kobo or similar bookseller. I save the previews of the books that look interesting, read the previews and then reject or buy the books.

With my TBR/unread books I'll select a random book and read a chapter when I'm not sure what to read. If I feel like continuing with that book I will, if I don't I'll select another random book. If I don't think I'll ever want to read that book I'll take it off the TBR list, if I don't think anyone in the household will ever want to read that book then I'll delete it.
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Old 05-22-2018, 11:17 AM   #11
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I find that even a brief sample lets me know if the book is written at an appropriate reading level (neither too juvenile, nor more difficult than I'm in the mood for) or if the author has a writing style that just doesn't appeal to me. I wouldn't need to read 50 pages for this. Of course I am over 50 so according to the rule BenG posted I can subtract a few pages....
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Old 05-28-2018, 10:52 AM   #12
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I think this would be great to pare down freebie books. Think of it as a fun thing to do rather than determination to eliminate. They do this with kids to simply try to get kids to read at all or to read a wider selection.

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