I'm doing something unusual today, and taking a book off my Goodread's to-read shelf. Almost invariably, I add books and leave them there till I finally get around to reading them. Removing them is so exceptional I feel the need to write a blog post justifying myself!
The specific story is pretty simple here: when I put John Anderson's Hypersonic and High-Temperature Gas Dynamics on my reading list last summer, I was more interested in bookmarking it for future reading rather than giving it a particular priority in my independent study plan. However, since then, I've started giving much more weight to reading the books that are already on my to-read list (and don't want to overpopulate it with the hundreds of titles which have, at least briefly, caught my attention over the years).
Hypersonic aerodynamics is an advanced topic, and Anderson recommends Fundamentals of Aerodynamics and Modern Compressible Flow as pre-requisite texts. At this point, I'm not going to forget about his hypersonics book, so when and if I get to the point where it's appropriate to study high-speed flow, I'll know where to look. In the meantime, however, I'm better served prioritizing more foundational engineering texts and the other types of books on my list (history of science, philosophy, fiction).
I'll probably use the newly-vacated slot for Spacecraft Mission Design by Charles D. Brown, which strikes me as a more appropriately challenging textbook at this point in my reading program.
