I was about to post the same view (though I hadn't bumped into Exploration vs Exploitation before).
One year I decided to blow through as many books as I could, and the next year I took my time and re-read the interesting ones much more closely. If I hadn't spend the previous year getting through as many as I could, I wouldn't have found even half of the interesting ones.
There is a middle ground between consuming as much as possible and carefully reading every book.