How to Read: Giving Up on Books
Do you finish every book you start? No matter how bad? Here's how to give up the habit...
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We’ve all been there, right? We start reading a novel — whether it’s one we’ve been looking forward to for ages, one recommended to us by friends, or just a random one we like the look of — and then some way in we realise something. Actually, we’re just not enjoying it. The unputdownable thriller we’d been promised is, in fact, ridiculously easy to put down. If anything, it’s unpickupable. Or the latest gripping drama is about as gripping as warm butter, and twice as rancid.
Sometimes people would ask me what was happening in book I was in the middle of and I’d realise I couldn’t tell them a single thing about the plot, but I could tell them what page I was on, so closely was I monitoring how much more I’d got left to go.
Sometimes this happens after 50 pages, sometimes 100. Sometimes pretty much straight away. But, if you’re anything like I used to be anyway, you determine you’ll finish it come what may. You plough on, doggedly, determinedly, joylessly. You will get to the end, you tell yourself. You’re invested. This book is not going to defeat you. One day, when you finally reach the end, you will be able to look people in the eye, and say, ‘Oh, yes, I read that.’ You won’t mention that you hated every moment of the experience.
It’s a terrible habit, and one I’m so happy I’ve managed to break. Below, I’ll tell you how, and give you four things you can start doing today.
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