No, I’m not giving you permission to stop reading altogether. Rather, I’m giving you permission to put an individual book down before you finish it and to never pick it up again.
Growing up, I knew
it was okay to be selective about which books I read, but I thought it was a
crime to start one and not finish it. I even made it through Sons and Lovers
by D.H. Lawrence in a college class on English novels. (Well, maybe putting
that one down would have been a crime since it was part of the grade, but I
hated every word.)
Then I got to
graduate school, where new students in the psychology program were required to
take an introductory seminar. The only thing I remember about the seminar is
that we were assigned Portney’s Complaint by Philip Roth. Hard as I
tried, I could not get through it. Fortunately, the seminar was ungraded, but
that was the first time I gave myself permission to leave a novel unfinished.
Even after that, I
felt guilty whenever I didn’t complete a book. It got easier after that,
however. Now I believe it’s a crime to waste my time on a book that I don’t
enjoy unless it’s research or there is some other educational reason for reading
it. For example, reading a highly-rated book that I find totally boring may
give me insight into how readers think. Or it may not. If it isn’t doing even
that, I won’t keep reading.
That’s one of the
lessons I’ve learned in life. If a book isn’t worth reading, don’t waste your
time on it.
You have my
permission to stop.
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