Conditions for A Grateful Reading

 I have several books (library and otherwise) currently stacked on various shelves (bookshelves or otherwise), and waiting for me to read them. Sometimes, I am sidetracked by a whole lot of things, so I might not get to them as quickly as I would wish. On the other hand, this reading is essential to my research and theoretical formulations. And I am thinking: what kinds of reading allow me to be curious about the topics that the authors are conveying in the book? What aspects of reading fill me with joy, if not gratitude?  Conversely, what aspects of reading, particularly in academia, cause me to lose curiosity, if not outright shut down from being curious or grateful?
   All of this ties in with the topic of assessment, because I believe that learners and students assess as much as teachers do. While teachers ultimately assess the value of a students' writing, students also need to assess the sources they are researching to determine relevance to their research topics. However, too narrow a focus on "relevance" can lead to a kind of repetition of the same material and ideas as in existing scholarship in a certain area. To be original and creative, scholars need to be willing to dip into subject areas that are sometimes tangential to their current topic. This is because the cross-fertilization of different theories across different fields is a fruitful way to invigorate scholarship and prevent the student from thinking too narrowly about their given topic and field.
   So, I think this comes to my main point, and that is the reader needs to be willing to suspend disbelief in a topic's relevance to their topic. That is, a student needs to go beyond what they think they will find in a given subject to embrace what could be found; to even step outside the familiar to see something new. This requires a certain ability to enjoy and appreciate something as though it were specifically designed for that person's life in that moment. When a person is open to reading in this way, serendipity tends to happen. This, for instance, happens to me when I read the I Ching: I often connect the hexagrams I am reading to my life experience, or something that seems similar to it in some way.
  What I think this requires goes beyond a traditional idea of reading as an act of opening a book that was written years ago by another person. To read a book is to open to one's present situation, using the words of the book as a way of assessing that present, felt and lived experience. A book speaks to me and reaches out to me where I am now, but it is up to me to trust that it will do so, just as every book has always done so since the very beginning. When thought of this way, no reading is accidental, and reading can plant seeds for future thought or inspiration. Given this, there is no reading that is ever a true waste of time.
   Could some of this thinking about revising the function of reader key into what my thesis is about? Well, writing this should give me reasons to feel grateful later (perhaps).