Should you quit reading a book?

The Hindu

2 days ago

In an earlier piece in this column, I had discussed the pleasures and benefits of rereading a book. While it is fairly easy to decide whether you want to revisit a book, a thornier question dogs readers. Should you quit reading a book?
As a young reader, I remember embarking on Little Women eagerly. However, I found it tedious to get past the first chapter and gave up. This happened a few times and now, I realise why I struggled. I had no knowledge of American history as a 12-year old, and could not situate the events of the first chapter in context. However, when I returned to the book a couple of years later, I loved it and devoured the entire series in quick succession. My experience with Little Women taught me that our relationship with a book, like most connections in life, morphs over time.
Now in my fifth decade, I don't have the luxury of wiling away lazy summer afternoons. Like most adults, my to-do list and reading list keep getting longer. Given the paucity of time, how long should I persist on a book that doesn't pull me in? Should I toil over an abstruse text? Do other people feel guilty when they quit a book too?
In an article in The Atlantic, Sophia Vershbow avers that there are 'two schools of thought' regarding quitting a book. One group insists on ploughing through a book from end to end, while the other believes that we should not waste time on tomes we don't enjoy. Vershbow interviewed an English teacher who recommends that students finish a book before deciding if they detest it. While she encourages them to articulate why they hate it, she finds that class discussions are more enriching when different students have divergent views on a text. Additionally, if we wish to expand our worldviews, we need to engage with texts that discomfit us.
Why we read
Thus, whether we quit reading a book depends on our purpose of reading it. Students have to labour through dense volumes if they want to optimise their learning. Likewise, if you are reading a challenging book in your field to upskill yourself, then your sweat is probably going to pay off. For these hard-to-read but must-read books, I follow a simple strategy that works well if you don't have pressing deadlines. Read short tracts, either a chapter or even a section at a time.
The question of quitting becomes more pertinent when it comes to reading for pleasure. Liz Minoo interviews librarians and professors in The Harvard Gazette and quotes Reed Lowrie, a Harvard librarian, who recommends that you persist with a book if you are 'enjoying and/ or learning from it.' But if neither of these criteria are met, then it's time to give up on it. Research librarian Mary Frances Angelini recommends reading 10% of the pages of a book before deciding whether to drop it. Another librarian, Maya Bergamasco, says that you can quit a book if the plot, pace or protagonist doesn't resonate with you. Given the number of good books you can peruse, why waste time on ones that aren't fulfilling?
Finally, there is a growing cohort of people who fail to complete books not because they find them unappealing but because our attention spans are diminishing. To motivate yourself to read more often and more regularly, joining a book club can help. Maria Tatar, a Literature professor, notes that you feel like a 'delinquent' if you don't keep up with your book club. She also describes another emotion that book lovers can relate to: the grief of completing a wonderful book which is akin to 'exiting a world.'
The writer is visiting faculty at the School of Education, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and the co-author of Bee-Witched.