Never force yourself to read a book that you do not enjoy. There are so many good books in the world that it is foolish to waste time on one that does not give you pleasure.
~Atwood H. Townsend
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
~John Witherspoon
This is something I always have trouble with. Once I'm a few chapters into a book, I feel compelled to finish it, whether I am enjoying it or not. The two quotes above, though, were not quite enough to convince me to change my ways. But then I came across this quote:
Given a reading career of fifty years, a 40-hour reading week, a 46-week working year and three hours per novel, you would, as I calculate, need 163 lifetimes to read [all the novels currently published].
~John Sutherland
Well, I don't know of many people who can afford to spend 40 hours a week reading, let alone read a novel in three hours! So for me, reading all the novels published would take more like 16,300 lifetimes! Now that puts things into perspective!!!
So maybe I will start abandoning books that I'm not enjoying. We'll see how that goes. And I thought I'd pass this idea along for all of you as you get ready to start your summer reading. Only 10 more days and we're off!
~Terry