Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket
I have an English Lit degree, and the following advice from a professor almost made it worthwhile: "if you're reading for pleasure, and it's not pleasurable, put the book down. Give the author 50 pages, and if they haven't made it worth your time, move on to the next book."<p>I share this advice with everybody, but almost nobody takes it as far as I know. There's way too much guilt and shame surrounding reading: "if I pick it up, <i>by GOD I will finish it, even if it takes a year and I hate every second of it</i>". It shouldn't be that way.