I've quoted this poem a couple of times already. One of the many things that I have trouble with is deciding what book to read next. Sometimes I just grab something off the shelf that looks interesting. Sometimes I choose something that I've had for a very long time because I feel guilty that I've neglected it (hi, John Shepherd's Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600-1800!). Sometimes I choose something written in Chinese because I feel guilty that I haven't read a book in Chinese for a long time (hi, Yang Tsui's (楊翠) 《永不放棄：楊逵的抵抗、勞動與寫作》!). Sometimes I choose a biography or a work of fiction because I find them easier to read than a more scholarly or theoretical work, and sometimes I choose a more scholarly or theoretical work because I feel guilty that I'm making life too easy for myself by reading something that isn't torture to get through. (My Calvinist feelings of total depravity even motivate my reading choices, it seems.)
But I've got a long list of readings that I've given myself for that proposed semester leave that I mentioned (no word on that yet), and I'm trying to decide the order of the readings. One way might be just to jump from one book to another than seems relevant based on what I learn from the first book. Another might be to look through the books to find themes that connect them, sort of like writing a syllabus for myself. I haven't found any good answers on the internet yet (probably because I'm not using the right search terms). Maybe I should ask ChatGPT?
OK, here's what I asked the old Chatter:
I have a lot of books that I need to read for a research project. They're on a variety of topics, some more closely related to each other than others. How should I decide the order to read them in?
And they said,
When deciding the order to read your books for a research project, it's important to keep in mind your goals and priorities for the project. Here are some steps you can take to decide the order:
1. Identify the most important books: Take a look at all the books you have and identify the ones that are most important to your research. These may be the ones that are most closely related to your topic or the ones that are most highly recommended.
2. Create categories: Once you've identified the most important books, try to categorize them based on their topic or theme. This can help you to see how the books relate to each other and which ones should be read together.
3. Prioritize: Decide which categories of books are most important for your research and prioritize them. This can help you to focus your reading and ensure that you're getting the most important information first.
4. Balance: As you decide the order in which to read your books, try to balance the categories so that you're not reading too many on one topic before moving on to another. This can help you to stay engaged and avoid burnout.
5. Make a plan: Once you've decided on the order in which to read your books, create a reading plan. This can help you to stay on track and ensure that you're making progress towards your research goals. You can also adjust your plan as needed based on your progress and any new information you learn.
Overall, by identifying the most important books, categorizing them, prioritizing, balancing, and making a plan, you can create an effective reading order that helps you achieve your research goals.
Hmmm... all in all, not bad advice. (Wonder where they're getting it from?) It sounds basically like what I said about writing a syllabus for myself, though. (With the possible exception of the point about "balance".)
I'm going to try something more specific, though. I'm going to feed my reading list into ChatGPT and see what it suggests about that... Wait a second...
Well, it didn't know quite how to answer that: "Wow, that's quite a list of books! Since the topics of the books are quite diverse, it's difficult to suggest a specific order for you to read them in." It did give suggestions about how to read some of the books, though. Back to the drawing board...
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