My own take of [[How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read]]. I realize that I have a bias *towards* reading original work. Perhaps this is the guilt that Bayard is talking about. But most people are okay with living with this guilt. I feel like I need to somehow fight against this guilt. This doesn't even mean that I read a lot of books. It makes my reading to be ineffective, forcing me to read books that doesn't contribute to my agenda. Also, reading an original text is *hard*. It opens up another window of literatures that you are not exposed with. Say, that you only had a single sentence understanding of the French revolution. You pick an introductory volume on it. You know slightly better, but now you have more "known unknowns". All the characters (Robespierre, Danton, Saint-Just), concepts, and historical context. This is what Happened while I was reading [[The Human Condition]] (and when I attempted to read [[Capitalism, Socialism, & Democracy]]). I realized that my understanding of [[Marxism]] was inadequate to grasp the text; so I to read these first. I'm halfway through *the Human Condition*; I think I can finish it without any more detours, but I realized that I need to read up on some classical philosophy (Plato's Republic in particular). But for how long should this journey go? What I should be really doing is the following: 1. study the graph. study the main trends and the key authors. 2. read more overviews rather than the original works. 3. Only when a book is eligible to be read, it should be considered. Some criterion are: - *multiple* references within the graph. - considered to be one of the core pillars of the discipline (either the work or the author). Many times, the first criterion would cover this. 4. i should have a pretty good understanding of a book *before* reading the book 5. Don't be forced to read the work cover to cover. Be liberal about reading only the chapter that concerns you. 6. take extensive notes; read extensive reviews.