1. The book must be interesting. If I am having to drag my attention to the page, am distracted by the fly buzzing on the window, I give it up. Good bye. Not worth my time.
2. The book must be positive. I don’t mean that it must be full of morals-of-the-story, happy people, shiny places, fairies, rainbows, and other flights of not-so-realistic fancy. (Not that I have anything against flights of fancy.) What I mean is that the overall tone of the book, the current that pulls me along through the happy and sad people, through the shiny and dirty places, must tend upward instead of downward. For example, I won’t be reading Kurt Cobain’s journals. I know the trend because I know how the story ends. I’m sure I could learn something, but inundating myself with page after page of a mindset that led toward death by overdose is another waste my time. I would read Anne Frank’s diary, or Corrie Ten Boom’s, or those of others who have lived through horrible things but have created an upward current from it.
3. The book must be well-written. I am adamant about this, even with (or especially with) non-fiction works. Anyone who cannot follow the rudimentary principles of grammar and style has no business publishing a book. (I have a strange feeling this comment will come back to haunt me when I have a book published. Critics, rejoice.) As a writer, I want what I read to influence my writing to become clearer, not muddier. What we read influences not only what we write, but what we think, how we think, what we say and how we say it: a phenomena that explains why most teenagers talk in abbreviations since most of what they read is text messages.

That’s it. Three little rules, but they have saved me from many hours wasted on halfway decent books. There are plenty of great books to read out there. Find them, read them, love them, and don’t feel like you have to give time to anything less than great.