/b/ - Random

All my non-fiction books are paperback and litter my room and house half-read. I just float between them when the topic strikes me and I end up reading another 30-90 pages, then put them down for another few weeks or months. All my fiction books are audiobooks and I usually marathon them to, from and during work over a couple of days, so there's never really a chance to leave them unread. That said, the vast majority I sample are either boring and entirely awful and just dump them 10 minutes in, so on a bad week I can have 5-10 audibooks in mid-read before I find one I like and want to buy.

I like to get through good stories in under a few days usually, but that's because I feel the need to condense the story down and digest it in one go before I start to lose detail in my memories. I don't think you should feel compelled to finish every book you start. Interest in some topics and stories come and go, and writers aren't always consistent. I've read through more than a few books that slow to a dreadful crawl towards the end and I only force myself to keep going out of a sense of incompleteness that drives me nuts.

Is it ok to skip chapters? I read interview with the vampire and loved it. Moved on to vampire lestat and loved it to until armand showed up. I hate that character. I was skipping chapters after chapter just waiting for the story to move on pretending that armand was just a small minor character but gave up and moved on to the next book

i stated reading again recently and really enjoy it. i wish more people appreciated reading

I love reading and horror! Its totally fine to drop a book you arent that into. I'm reading "Parasite" by Mira Grant right now. It's pretty fun!

I used to read more, but as my work and other commitments started to demand more and more of my time I began to be more selective of the books that I start and the ones I bother to finish.

At the one hand, it's your life and you have every right to choose not to finish a work that you aren't enjoying. On the other hand, some of the greatest books I've ever read didn't catch my interest until I had read a good chunk of it (e.g. East of Eden). For most books you can tell if you're going to enjoy finishing it at the 20% mark, many much earlier than that, but don't be afraid of dropping it at 90% if you feel like you've gotten all you could out of it –don't fall for the sunk cost fallacy.

Generally, non-fiction seems more forgiving of partial readings, especially if the chapters are clearly labeled and you can easily spot the parts of it that are interesting to you and the ones that aren't.

>>297387
Ayyyy you read east of eden, I love that book! What did you think of it? I’m not religious at all so I probably missed a lot of symbolism. My favorite character was Kathy, even though she’s supposed to be the epitome and root of all evil, original sin and all that (she’s supposed to be eve or Lilith, I forget which)

>>296847
Anon, know we are enemies