I'm afraid this would only work for me if I were really interested in the other person's book recommendations anyway. The value to me of getting someone else to read a book of my choice is much less than the cost to me of having someone commandeer my limited reading time. You'd have to pay me a lot of money—like enough to pay my rent for months!—to read 19 books that someone else chose.
That’s a great point about the limitations of this idea. However, I've been surprised by how many people are willing to accept unfavorable odds to prove the sincerity of their beliefs. I’ve noticed that people seem to become much more cautious after losing a significant book bet. I'll admit that for myself, I'm usually only willing to risk 1 or 2 books on a bet, but, sometimes, just talking about the question in terms of a bet brings around a more reasonable discussion.
I'm afraid this would only work for me if I were really interested in the other person's book recommendations anyway. The value to me of getting someone else to read a book of my choice is much less than the cost to me of having someone commandeer my limited reading time. You'd have to pay me a lot of money—like enough to pay my rent for months!—to read 19 books that someone else chose.
That’s a great point about the limitations of this idea. However, I've been surprised by how many people are willing to accept unfavorable odds to prove the sincerity of their beliefs. I’ve noticed that people seem to become much more cautious after losing a significant book bet. I'll admit that for myself, I'm usually only willing to risk 1 or 2 books on a bet, but, sometimes, just talking about the question in terms of a bet brings around a more reasonable discussion.
I completely agree it's valuable to limit cheap talk!