The experience of reading a book whose reputation preceded it — a book everyone says is great, that you've seen discussed for years before you finally read it — is almost always deflating. Not because the book isn't good, but because your expectation is now calibrated against an idealized version that no real book can match.

I delayed reading Infinite Jest for eight years because of its reputation. When I finally read it, the first third was remarkable and then it was mixed and then I was glad I read it but not glad I waited eight years. The book I'd built from years of second-hand accounts was better than the actual book, which is a generous and strange compliment.

The lesson I take is to read books when I'm prompted to, not when I've heard about them long enough to build a full expectation.