Jim Collins writes about a bullet and cannonball analogy for business. Instead of going all-in on something that may or may not work, he advises shooting bullets—small bets at various things—until one hits the target. When it does, then you shoot a cannonball and go all in.

I like to read the same way.

There are a lot of books I want to read; currently, there are over $2,500 of books in my Amazon cart. With such a wide selection of options for my next read, I’m picky about what I start and finish. If I get bored with a book, I drop it. This works fine, but ideally, I get so good at “judging a book by its cover” that any book I decide to start is so good that I finish it. In this way, I hope to hone my judgment so that the number of books I quit each year will be fewer than the previous year. Not because I “experimented” less but because I did more research on the front end.

Reading with bullets and cannonballs makes this process easier. If I’m not sure I’ll enjoy a book, but the topic looks interesting, I’ll shoot bullets: I’ll read interviews with the author, a few sample chapters on Kindle, or book reviews. Sometimes, I’ll listen to an audiobook chapter. (Spotify having audiobooks makes this a lot easier now.) If either of my “bullets” hooks me, I know I’ll want to read the physical copy.

Sometimes, after shooting bullets, I feel like I got the gist of the book and don’t need to read the whole thing. This often happens with business books because it’s easy to summarize a business book in an hour-long podcast. When that happens, I write up some thoughts and move on to my next book. Other times, the author or topic is so interesting that I want to go deeper and get the nuance. When that’s the case, I shoot my cannonball and buy the book.

This happened this week. After listening to a podcast with Jared Cohen on Armchair Expert, I wanted to learn more about his book Life After Power. So I started listening to it on Spotify, and before the introduction was over, I knew I’d want to buy the physical copy.

The downside of all of this is that it takes time. If I had a money tree, I would just buy any book that looks interesting, but I don’t. Though books are cheap, the cost adds up over time, so I only try to buy a book I know I’ll enjoy and learn a lot from. This isn’t the only way to choose what to read, but it works well for me.