Thanks for pointing out the fallacy of trying to read 100s of books, seems to come next to trying to read infinite jest just to check a mark or brag about it.

The reality is that the majority of non fiction books are written by authors with perverse incentives - as a writer you can mostly make money by writing a complete book, whether or not you have a books worth of things to say about the topic. My approach has been to try and read 1 or two books a year but make sure they matter. The few books I do read, I remember most of their good parts and find them valuable and rewarding. Almost all of my friends and colleagues who are self proclaimed voracious readers never seem the wiser from it, not like they can recount any specific instance of a book affecting their life or decisions in any way at least.

All of this is about non fiction of course, fiction books are a whole another animal!

I agree completely with most of what you said. The whole system of making books having a minimum number of words doesnt help at all.

And I agree with the fiction part, I know and have witnessed people who have been reading fiction throughout their whole life. As an adult, they enjoy and can easily finish a fiction book in one day. But most of them cannot do the same with non-fiction books. I am at the opposite. I can go through a non-fiction really fast, but would take forever and rarely enjoy reading fiction.

I do notice that too, that some books have really valuable insights and can kinda stand the test of time. Some are just like iterations of multiple books out there thats just retold in a different way