Every day, without fail, there are dozens of books being published, especially when you include translations of existing works. According to the first few results that come up on Google, there are roughly three or four million books published each year (including self-published titles).
That is a lot of books and, as readers, it puts you and me in a difficult position. How do we know what books are worth our money? Better yet, worth our time? The key to majorly refining that question is understanding that many of these millions of books are a complete waste of time, money, and paper.
Worthlessness Is Personal
First and foremost, what is ‘worthless’ and what is not is entirely down to you as a person. I may hate what you read and vice versa, so it is not a question of who is right or wrong, but rather who prefers what.
If you aren’t a fan of a certain genre, then you can take those off your radar. It doesn’t actually mean that particular genre is worthless, but it is effectively a waste of space to yourself, so treat unappealing genres as worthless (unless you decide to change your mind and give them a go).
Additionally, consider length. If you hate short stories, then deem all of them a waste of time. If you don’t like pushing yourself through painfully long novels, then don’t. Hate self-help books? Forget them. Think autobiographies are worthless? Out they go. Don’t care for war stories? I’m sure the veterans can forgive you.
Suddenly, in a matter of minutes, those millions of potential reads released each year has been significantly cut down. Still, you’re going to have hundreds of thousands of books to choose from, so you need to know what to look out for and avoid. But, as a general rule, you can apply this dismissive mentality to most genres, lengths, and style of book you dislike.
Naturally Worthless Books
Some books are designed to be an insult to their readers. Take the very egotistical, and (in my opinion) insecure, The Unplugged Alpha: The No Bullsh*t Guide to Winning with Women & Life by Richard Cooper. It’s a self-help book for pathetic men who want to go from Mr Nice Guy to Mr Bad Boy, written by someone aiming to capitalise on the reader’s never ending self-hated. And yes, Amazon genuinely put this front and centre, which is how I spotted it.
For the vast majority of self-published books, as well as self-help books with titles as absurd as the example above, they are deemed ‘naturally worthless’ by default. Joke books, like the childish activity book Riddles to Do While You Poo on the Loo by Alex Smart (not something I’d want to put my name to), are also something to immediately blank when browsing. Again, it showed up as a popular selling under the Kindle Self-Publishing licence.
It seems harsh to approach most self-published, self-help, and immature books this way, but it’s for your own good. Most of these exist to prey on a particular sort of person: those with more money than sense, or those with children they have no respect for. Treat yourself like a grown-up and buy some worthwhile fiction or non-fiction, not these shallow wastes of money and time.
Ratings Do Matter
Whether or not you want to believe it, ratings do matter—but I get why many of us ignore this way of thinking. Take films, for example. I have enjoyed many, many films adorned with average ratings of 50-70%, even though I would have placed them much higher on the scoring table. We all have experiences like this, loving something that others seem to hate and review bomb, which can lead us to distrust ratings as being too woke, mainstream, or simply shallow.
Reading is about preference, yes, but if you see a book getting review bombed, it is usually for good reason. Of course, it could just be cancel culture coming after the author, but then you also have to wonder if you want to support that author if they’ve caused a good amount of outcry amongst fans and critics.
Ratings should not be the ultimate decider of whether you buy a book. Just because a novel is rated 10/10 does not mean you would enjoy it, and a 5/10 rating does not mean it is not worth picking up if you think the premise is interesting. Instead, you can use ratings as a rough basis for whether a book is worth reading.
The stronger its score, the higher you can consider it, especially if you like what the book is about or are familiar with the author. However, if it’s rated lower, or you are not familiar with the author, you can use the blurb and some online reviews to figure out if you should pick up a copy. Also, publishers can be a good indicator of quality, with some smaller ones being more apt to publish amateur debuts or works that more prestigious firms didn’t want to release.
Time Is Finite
Lastly, remember that your time is finite. If you read a book each week for fifty years straight, that is still only 2,600 books. Most humans only read around a thousand books in their complete and typical lifespan, and that’s referring to avid readers. The average person may only read a few hundred or less.
So, out of those two thousand books you’re going to read in life, don’t you want them to be good reads that you can truly absorb yourself in? Of course, not everything in life is a home run, and we all understand that disappointment is a natural facet of all things we take part in, but it is still important to prioritise your enjoyment. To do that, you need to accept that many, many books are simply worthless to you as a standalone reader, even if they can be enjoyed by many others.
I hope some of this advice has opened a few peoples’ eyes. It can be a little morbid to view things in such a way, especially when most fiction is about escapism and ignoring our ongoing reality for a while.
But it is always good to refine, and ensure that you get the best experience out of reading. So make sure that almost every book you read is relevant to you, and can be enjoyed by you. Happy reading!
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