But don’t feel that you have to read every book in great depth. Francis Bacon summed it up well saying, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” But John Piper adds credence to the latter part of this quote saying, “If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It’s the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves. Digging is hard, but you might find diamonds. He goes on to quote Mortimer Adler: “Books must make demands on you. They must seem to you to be beyond your capacity”
PJ Smyth