Yes! I do think it’s usually physical books, and books I have grown overly attached to reading, where I can’t bring myself to finish them.

Asimov’s Foundation trilogy comes to mind, I had a physical copy that had the whole trilogy as one book, and just as the third book was coming to a climax I quit reading it and shelved it. It’s been so long I barely remember the plot now, lol.

All good points! I have the same tendency to pick up and drop books based on mood and what’s going on in my life. I recently just picked back up Sapolsky’s A Primate’s Memoir which I had abandoned years ago after reading roughly the first half. Picking it back up, I enjoyed it so thoroughly I became a bit avid in my reading and finished the rest of the book in a week or so (which is rather fast paced for me).

I like the metaphor of reading being like listening to the radio. I often feel guilty for dropping books or not powering through (there are many, many books I have read the first quarter or so of and shelved with the intention to finish another time). Probably healthier to have a more free and less “driven” mindset towards reading books.

Sometimes I drop a book because I enjoy it so much I don’t want it to end, I want it to always be there and to relish it later. This is a bit silly - there are always other books, but I also will forget the plot over time and eventually the book will be enough like new that I can enjoy re-reading it.

That seems like a wholesome perspective, thanks for sharing it!

People lie because they want people to think they are smart.

I remember when I was a kid, I was amazed by my grandmother who could finish a whole novel in a few sittings across a day or two when she would come and stay with us. I once mustered up the courage to ask her how she learned to read so quickly, and she explained that she doesn’t actually read every word, but just scans for major plot points. I felt silly, and unsure how to respond - it seemed to me she wasn’t reading, but I didn’t want to imply that. lol

She wasn’t trying to appear smart, I think she just didn’t want to suffer the boring parts, so she scanned ahead to the juicy bits. That’s such an interesting and different way of approaching reading than I have, I’ve only recently started to skip an introduction or preface if it didn’t seem crucial to the book, something I would have previously considered antisocial or rougish, haha.

That’s an interesting perspective, as I have always felt insecure for being a slow reader. I feel like people in my world see it as a sign of being less intelligent, and while I would like to think slower reading helps with my comprehension, I also just feel like it’s not much of a choice for me (I mean, the alternative to slow reading for me would be something other than reading, like scanning; it seems people who can read faster than me are somehow also more competent or intelligent).

I tend to be a slow reader and it can take me a long time to finish a book, but Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road are two books that gripped me such that I basically spent every waking moment reading the book until I finished (I think in both cases I finished the books in less than 24 hours).