To finish the book or not

I like to see things through. If I start something, I want to finish it.  Commitment, perseverance, and determination are all important values to me. And that applies to activities outside of work, such as reading; I feel I have to finish a book once I start it. Over the past five years, I can recall not finishing a book I’ve started only twice*.

A few months ago, I read this quote by Adam Grant:

“Public service announcement: You don’t have a moral obligation to finish every book you start. Stopping doesn’t mean you lack grit. It means you have the wisdom to let go of sunk costs. Reading is for entertainment and education. If it doesn’t bring joy or insight, move on.”

In 2024, I’ve read several lengthy (700+ page) novels that have felt like ‘work’ to get through. And so, I’ve been thinking about his quote and considering whether I need to change my approach. But when I review my list of finished books that have felt like hard slogs, I’m happy to have finished almost all of them.** I also have a concern about loosening my commitment, which is that it introduces a new decision with every book: to finish or not? And there are many books I’ve really enjoyed that took a while to get into, but ultimately were great. If I had moved on too early, I may have missed out.  

So, despite reflecting on my position, I plan to stick with my current approach and intent of starting a book to finish it. The one adjustment I plan to make is to increasingly be more diligent about what books I choose to start. There are so many fantastic, well reviewed and regarded books, I should be able to minimize the number of hard slog reads by being more selective upfront. Maybe that will satisfy my dilemma over time. We will see.

If anyone has good insights or thoughts on this topic, please do share!

*For those curious, one was “Why we sleep” by Matthew Walker. I felt the book sleeve sufficiently captured the takeaways and I was reading a novel that could have been a short article. The other was “The Mythical Man-Month” by Fred Brooks. Published in 1975 and focused on software development, a lot of the examples and references were so old it was a bit painful to read so I jumped around to a few chapters I was interested in and left it at that.

**Ironically, I’m currently reading “mistakes were made (but not by me)” by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, which discusses people’s proclivity towards self-justification. If it was hard to get through the book, but I was able to, I’m naturally more inclined to believe it was worth it.


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