Challenging

Regret in reading a book often arises not because the book itself is “bad,” but because the encounter between reader and text happens at the wrong time, or with mismatched expectations.

It often happens that you start reading a book but don’t like it. Sometimes the language is difficult to grasp, or the content is challenging; however, this doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad. It is possible that my own level of understanding simply hasn’t developed enough yet.

I have a list of such books. In fact, many classics are famous for being “unreadable” to beginners but transformative to those who revisit them years later. The book hasn’t changed, the reader has.