Stopping vs. Continuing
I went through a bit of a reading crisis recently where I got beyond the midway point in two books and stopped enjoying them. They weren’t actively upsetting me; picking them up felt like a slog.
I know the whole sunk cost fallacy of continuing to invest time into something you’re not enjoying, but one of the drawbacks of tracking your reading in a tool like Goodreads is that you want credit for that initial time investment. You want those pages read to count in your page total at the end of the year.
A bad reason to keep reading a book.
I read a statistic recently that gave me pause, and I’ve been using it as a barometer for whether to keep going:
You’re likely to only read 2,500, maybe 5,000 books in your lifetime. Is this book you’re slogging through really worth the time that could be spent reading another, better book?
Only 2,500 books? Would I get to the end of my life and be happy that I used one of those slots on the book I’m reading?
In one case, I kept reading the story. I didn’t enjoy it, but it wasn’t terrible. I was glad I finished it because it gave me insight into whether I’d like other books in that genre. (Probably not.)
The other book was in a familiar genre, and while a lot of other people would like it, I found that the author kept saying the same thing. I looked up and realized I was 120 pages into the book and hadn’t learned anything new about the characters or the plot. So I stopped reading that one and switched to something I was certain I’d be happy to have spent one of my 2,500 on.
It brings a certain weight to your choice if you think of it as a set budget of time. A limited number of slots. It doesn’t mean everything has to be profound or amazing, but I need to stop holding onto books I know I’ll enjoy for some future point and consume them now so I’m not using up those slots on things I don’t love and never getting to the ones I know I will.
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I got to the part about 2500 books and thought “challenge accepted”.
Oh man, you’ve scooped one of our future posts (“Do you DNF?”) Anyhow, that will be up in a few weeks probably. We definitely DNF!
But also we read for pleasure so it seems much lower stakes. I dunno. I think it would stress me out to think that I have to read perfectly or I might be missing out on the best books or whatever with some limited number of books. No keeping track either (that was a post from us from earlier this year I think). It’s nice not needing any redeeming qualities because it’s a hobby and a pleasure and nothing more. Work can carry all my stress instead.
I think about this as a quilter. There are a finite number of quilts I will be able to make and right now I’ve purchased enough fabric, patterns, and kits to make… A lot of quilts. Will I have time to make them all? Probably not. But I have started a couple of quilts, found that I wasn’t enjoying the process, and set them aside to see if they became fun in the future. So I guess I’m in the “stop if you’re not having fun” group when it comes to hobbies and leisure activities.
I must admit, I very rarely DNF a book. I do occasionally set aside a book to pick up something else that’s calling to me more loudly… with the intention of getting back to it… someday. Of course, “someday” hasn’t arrived. (Yet?) (I even have a category on my Goodreads called “I’ll get back to it someday,” lol.)
Right now I’m reading “Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney. It’s for an online book club, and I’ll admit, if it wasn’t for the fact that I want to take part in the discussion, I probably would have shelved it within the first couple of chapters. But I pressed on, I’m now about 2/3 of the way through, and I’m invested enough that I’d like to see how it turns out. It won’t be my favourite of hers (that would be “Normal People”) but it’s okay.
P.S. I’m with Jen! Albeit I’d like to think my total will be higher! lol
I have found that borrowing e-books from the library which means they are deleted from my device after three weeks, concentrates my mind. Only, however, if I am really enjoying the book. Sometimes, I begin one over and over, and then eventually just don’t renew it or put another hold on it. So these days I definitely DNF, though not that many. I find slogging through a book actually delays reading books I really enjoy. I’m doing that right now with The Wren, The Wren. But sometimes I find the first half hard going, and whizz through the second half of a book. Or my mood changes and I love a book whereas it wasn’t right for me at a particular time.
Life is too short to read bad books (or books we don’t enjoy).
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