Knowing When to Stop...Reading

I’ve learned a lot during lockdown, and one of those things is that it’s okay to let go…of a book.

In one sense this is just a progression in my reader’s journey. In the beginning I was someone who had to finish a book, no matter how bad I thought it was, no matter how ill-fitted to my mood or to my tastes. If I picked something up by mistake, well, I was doomed to a long, grim read.

My last year at school was as bad as it got. I was preparing to go to university to study English and I was reading a lot of classics and a lot of modern literature. Some of them I galloped through. I adored just about anything by Conrad or Marlowe, for example. Sometimes it was more of a struggle. I fought my way through DM Thomas’s The White Hotel (the only book I’ve ever thrown in the bin on completion) before taking on DH Lawrence. I struggled through The Rainbow but Sons and Lovers was too much for me. I got about half way through and stopped. And until now that’s been my guilty secret. 

Since then I’ve remained reluctant to abandon a book, but as we came into lockdown I’ve been reading a lot more widely. Going out of my comfort zone is the natural consequence and has inherent risks: I might not like the book.

Lockdown has other impacts, too. With so much going on in the world I’ve learned to opt in and out of certain things for my own wellbeing. I’m more selective about what I tune in to on the telly. I listen to different radio stations. I’m quicker to reach for the off button. And this selectiveness has fed through to my reading. 

There are currently a lot of unfinished books on my Kindle and in my living room. There’s the cosy crime in an English village where the police tape is black and yellow not blue and white: I stopped reading it because either there’s no research or else the author doesn’t care about accuracy. There’s the exquisitely-written medieval thriller that just stepped too far over the boundaries of gruesomeness for my current mood. There’s the magical realism romance that just didn’t light my fire. And, of course there’s that marmite book, Wolf Hall. These four examples are very different but they have one thing in common. They’re all good books.

As I’ve changed as a reader I’ve also changed my perspective. I see a lot of authors complaining about readers who review or rate their books as DNF (did not finish). Why pick up a book if you don’t like it, they ask. 

The answer, of course, is complicated. Generally speaking I won’t review a book I haven’t finished. (I’ve done it once, because it was an excellent book and I thought people would enjoy it in a way I didn’t.) The vast majority of readers don’t pick up a book expecting to abandon it. They might experiment with a new genre and not like what they read; or they find it doesn’t suit their current mood; or they go back to an old favourite and realise their tastes have changed; or it just isn’t for them. 

As a writer, I find that DNF tag hurts like hell. But as a reader, I would say walking a way from a book can be liberating and free you up to read — and enjoy — the next one.