From Book Riot:
Until recently, not finishing a book was a foreign concept, a sign of weakness, a readerly sin. Giving up was not an option. The immense guilt I felt for even entertaining the idea of abandoning a book made the notion of a DNF (did not finish) pile impossible.
That all changed last fall. I woke up in the wee hours of a November night with the worst headache I’d ever had. My husband rushed me to the ER where we found out I had a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. Long story short, I had brain surgery and have spent the past year recovering.
I am incredibly lucky. I can walk, talk, and do almost everything I could before the surgery, but when your brain gets poked and prodded, there’s bound to be a few things that change physically and mentally. For me, one of the biggest changes has been my ability to stay focused while reading. It takes a lot more energy to concentrate for long stretches of time, and I often have to backtrack and reread because I can’t remember what I’ve just read.
I used to pride myself on reading at least three books a week. Now I’m glad if I get through one, and that one book better be spectacular if I’m going to spend so much time with it.
In the early days of my recovery while I was still in the hospital, I picked up Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, and I couldn’t get through it. I kept reading the same lines over and over and none of them stuck. I wondered if I should force myself to keep going.
. . . .
Annihilation wasn’t a bad book. It just wasn’t for me at the moment. I latched on to the idea that my time on this earth is limited and I shouldn’t spend it feeling frustrated and miserable. I closed Annihilation and made it the first book in my DNF pile.
I felt incredibly liberated and have since added a bunch more books to the pile. I want those of you with DNF guilt to experience this freeing feeling as well, so I’ve developed a list of reasons why it’s okay to abandon books you’re not enjoying. Let that DNF pile grow!
. . . .
Life is too short to read bad books (or books that just aren’t for you)!
Life is too short to be doing anything that makes you grumpy during your free time. Let go of the “I shoulds” and embrace the “I wants.”
. . . .
By sticking with a book you don’t like, you’re missing out on your next best read.
Who knows? Maybe the next book you pick up will be your favorite of the year. There’s no way you’ll know if you keep slogging through that book you’re only reading because you want to sound smart at dinner parties.
Link to the rest at Book Riot
PG has a few charming bits of OCD floating around in his life, but he hasn’t ever felt bad about not finishing a book.
Perhaps because, during his childhood, almost all books came from the library and almost all books went back to the library before their due dates, so no DNF’s were hanging around prompting PG to think about them.
However, he was a voracious consumer of books, read quickly (two weeks until the book goes back to the library!!) and was happy to consume almost any book he opened.
> almost all books came from the library
Same here. Took less than one summer vacation to read the entire collection of SF once I was considered old enough to go to town by myself. Another couple of months to read anything even remotely of interest. Then each new book became something relatively rare and precious, worth serious effort to grind through.
Now, of course, there’s no shortage of books. Instead of expensive chocolates, they have the relative value of popcorn; too cheap to worry much about individual pieces.
My DNF list is rather short, but I don’t consider books I read the first few pages of and stopped to be DNF books. That’s just part of the evaluation process to decide if I’m going to read a book. Once I decide “Yes, I’m going to read this,” I generally finish it. Its quite rare that I don’t. There’s been maybe five fiction books in my life I didn’t finish. All but two of them were books I was asked to review, lol, so I actually do feel guilt about those.
I probably finish 1 in 10 of the books I start reading. Maybe not even that many. I still manage to read sometimes hundreds of books and stories a year all the way through. I’ve already read 3 books this week. My DNF pile has saved my sanity. I would spend most of my life reading stuff I don’t like if it didn’t exist.
Hundreds of books have just never been picked up again. They fade away.
I’m not exactly compulsive about finishing books. Like PG growing up, if I couldn’t finish a book in two weeks, it went back to the library, no questions asked. My mother kept a list of books checked out and those books were returned. Period. I remember standing next to the return slot in the library reading the last few pages more than once.
Now, if I don’t finish a book, I never feel guilty. More often, with most books, once I start, I can’t stop. I guess I’m compulsive about challenging myself to find something worthwhile in everything I read, if only an example of what bad is. I am cautious about what I start because I know I am on for the ride. Sometimes a book gets so tedious, I give up, but not often. Occasionally, a compelling project crops up and the book is overcome by events.
I have actually DNF’d more than a few books right on page one. I have found that if I am saying to myself “I really don’t like reading this” — then I don’t.
Actually, I’d consider it a rather foolish sin to keep wasting your time on a book you aren’t enjoying.
(Reading it for school/work is an exception as it’s ‘work’ and not for enjoyment.)