> On 08-Aug-2014, at 8:04, Rajesh Mehar <[email protected]> wrote: > > Mohit, what's the reasoning behind not reading anything that is not more > than 5 years old? Good question Rajesh.
IMHO, the hype surrounding most books dies out by year 3, at most. This distance usually also allows us to judge whether the book was another "flavour of the season" or something worthy of our time & attention. Like a number of other measures, this is an arbitrary line. Somebody else might prefer 10, or 20 years. But I do believe a certain distance allows us a perspective that is usually lost otherwise. I arrived at this no. by trial & error. I found 5-10 years to be the range in which the book was still contemporary, while allowing for the critics (armchair & professional) to have moved on. Also, most book prices seem to drop after the year of launch. (Actually, I read many books in the last 3 years that were huge disappointments, leading me to adopt this rule. I have read only 1 truly bad book this year, (of the 30-odd till date) and that was Scott Adams's latest, an exception to the rule) Unfortunately, despite this measure, my amazon wishlist keeps multiplying. Do you think Amazon is adding books on their own to it? ;) Regards, Mohit
