Ask HN: Is it worth reading through a book even if you don't understand it?

There's that Asimov trope that he would read his college textbooks during the beginning of the course, i guess as a primer, for the material as it arose. I was wondering if it was worth doing that for subjects I am not familiar with. For example, I am reading Dynamic Hedging by Nassim Taleb, and it looks thick with financial stuff I don't know about. Should I just go through it, or should I have google handy by me and really digest it?