Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Not everything you read deserves the same treatment, and giving everything the same treatment is how reading becomes a chore. Most books want a sample, a look at the argument and then out. A few want to be read straight through at speed. Only a very small number repay the slow work of rereading, arguing back and taking notes, and those are the ones that actually change how you think.

Decide at the start which treatment a book will get, and abandon it freely when it turns out to be a taster. Then take the one that genuinely changed something for you and read it again slowly, with a pencil.