To read or not to read...

[fajrdrako]

for Nov. 12, 2009: Suggested by JM: "Life is too short to read bad books.” I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation. That is, until this week when I tried (really tried) to read a book that is utterly boring and unrealistic. I had to stop reading. Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?

Why waste time on bad books?

As I see it, there are three basic reasons to read a book:

1. Pleasure
   
2. Information
   
3. Curiosity

If I'm reading for the sake of pleasure, there's no point in continuing if I'm not getting pleasure from it. If I'm not engaged by a book after half a dozen pages, I'll probably stop. I am almost as particular about books as about TV shows. I see no reason to torture myself by reading (or watching) crap.

If I'm reading for information, and the information isn't good or trustworthy, I don't continue. I might browse a little, or skim, but again, why waste time? I suppose I might be reading something in order to refute it, and I've read non-fiction for the sake of being commissioned to write reviews that I'd never read otherwise.

Curiosity is a different issue. Though the first two reasons are my usual motivation for reading, occasionally I'll read a best seller or a book highly recommended by friends, and finish it even if I'm not thoroughly enjoying it. These are usually not bad books - though they might be: The Da Vinci Code was a bad book by just about every measure I know except sheer readability, and I stuck it through to the end. And learned that there is, in fact, a certain pleasure in being able to yet "You idiots!" at the protagonists every few pages.

I read the Harry Potter books out of this kind of curiosity, and though I never disliked any of them, they never really tipped over into something I'd read if I wasn't operating on curiosity alone. The best part was reading one of them aloud to friends. That was fun.

I'm more likely to read a comic book to the end even if I'm not enjoying it: partly because individual comics don't usually involve the same time commitment as novels, partly because there are issues of continuity and character-loyalty, partly because of the cost investment; and largely because I am very analytical about comics, and like to work through the creative and corporate implications of even the poor stories, and especially of the tropes and clichés of the medium.