Sunday, November 04, 2012

My 100 Page Rule

A couple of weeks ago, I met in person, an individual who is close to attaining one million miles of travel on one the frequent flier programmes of one American Airline. While aware that some people travel too often and that these miles must have been accumulated over a considerable period, one cannot fail to nbe impressed. That incident got me thinking about how arbitrary numbers suddenly find meaning in lives because why would the airline make the decision that reaching that milestone entitles one to lifelong privileged travel on that carrier. No doubt, it involves a marketing gimmick that such as the one I blogged about here a while back.

Being conscious that I have not accumulated a million units of anything of value, I am compelled to mention my one hundred page rule. This arbitrary rule is one that apply to books that I read in printed form. To my mind, whenever I am able to read up to 100 pages of a book in a single day or in one sitting after first starting to read it, then I tend to consider it not only worthy of recommending to others but I conclude often that the subject and writing style is well done. And Yet, I am sure that this is a very rough way to judge the quality of books and the value of the content addressed by the author(s). Equally important is that one hundred pages of a book is arbitrary because the amount that one reads for every one hundred pages depends on the font and layout of the book.

That notwithstanding, the One Hundred Page Rule refers to this, this, this and this book, among a few others. For obvious reasons, i do not apply this rule to digital versions of books.    

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