What if you put some numbers to the line "So many books, so little time"?
In 2010, Google estimated there were about 130 million books in the world. Many web pages claim that UNESCO says 2.2 million books are published per year, but I was unable to track down the original source. There are other lower and higher estimates depending on what you include, but let's guess that by now there's 150 million books in the world and 2 million more published each year. In any case the following estimates will destroy any precision.
- Let's say 90 % of those books are unavailable in any accessible bookstore or library, or are not published or translated in any language I speak.
- Let's say 90 % of the rest are something unlikely to be suitable for someone reading for fun (e.g. 3rd grade geography schoolbook or steam train repair manual).
- Let's say 90 % of the rest follow Sturgeon's Law and are... Not particularly high quality.
- Let's say 90 % of the rest are in genres or styles that just don't interest me personally.
That would mean 1 in 10 000 books in the world would be something that could reasonably interest me. That would mean about 15 000 suitable books available, and 200 more published per year.
My long term average reading speed is probably a bit over a book per week, let's round it to 50 books per year. I don't really see that rising significantly unless I win the lottery and can retire, or stop wasting my time on things like Reddit. I think the lottery scenario is more likely one of those.
So if I read 50 books per year, the amount of unread high quality books suitable to my tastes and available to me increase by about 150 books per year, the total number always getting increasingly out of reach. To theoretically reach the end of my reading list in my lifetime, I would need to drop about 80 or 90 % of the good books on it.
I started thinking about this when I heard some book reviewers repeatedly say something like "I didn't like this book but don't just take my word on it, read it yourself and form your own opinion." Based on those calculations, one lifetime is just too short to do that for books I have reason to expect I won't like. Of course sometimes a reviewer hating a book can be a reason for me to add it to my reading list.
Have you thought about this and accepted you will never read every good book? Do you ever think on these lines when deciding what to put on your reading list or what to stop reading if you don't feel like it? What criteria do you use to make those decisions?
EDIT:
Based on the comments, I have some more thoughts:
- It's better to have too many good books than too few.
- Rather than being depressed about too many books you will never read, you could consider this a permission to focus on just the books that you are pretty sure you will enjoy, and skipping any books that look bad or just OK, even if they have been recommended by many others.
- You can also not finish books if that suits your personality. Based on these calculations, you don't need to be afraid of running out of good books (other than some people who read ridiculous amounts... I salute you).
- No matter how many books you read, try to make the most of them.
- I did not expect to get philosophical, but the same applies to non-book things. Try to focus on the great experiences and avoid the bad or mediocre ones. Go watch that sunset on the beach while you can, talk to that one person, enjoy the limited time you have to the maximum.
- For a Twilight Zone scenario of finally having enough time to read, you can prepare by having an extra pair of glasses, or get eye surgery if possible.