Quake Books

Coined by Tyler Cowen:

My reading was much different when I was younger. I would more likely intensively engage with some important book totally full of new ideas. Hayek. Parfit. Plato. And so on. There just aren’t books like that left for me anymore. So I read many more, to learn bits, but haven’t in years experienced a “view quake.” That is sad, to me at least, but I don’t know how to avoid how that has turned out. So enjoy your best reading years while you can!

When you start reading a new genre, books will take longer to read because you’re constantly encountering new ideas and reconciling them with your worldview. But over time, these ideas will become more familiar - so you’ll have fewer “quakes” but can skim through books faster and pick out new ideas.