Grading System

I rate each book I read with the following very simplistic scale of 1-5 stars:

5 star- Must read (these are books that I generally recommend to others)
4 star- Worth reading
3 star- Good enough
2 star- Not good enough
1 star- Waste of time

I was curious as to how my ratings break-down by each category so I went back and reviewed the ratings I gave to the last 150 books I read. Only 15% received the highest 5-star rating, about 39% were rated 4-star, 37% rated 3-star, 6% rated 2-star and 3% were rated just 1-star.

I used to feel as though I had to finish each book I started but realized that some just are not worth the trouble. If I were to read 50 books a year for the next 50 years, I would only be able to read 2,500 books. With the limited amount of books that I will ever be able to read, I occasionally have to put aside that one book that just isn't worth the time. The last such book that I did not finish was The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King.