Pausing a Book
I recently paused reading a book. I like to say “paused” instead of “stopped” because I believe that if there was something that attracted me to the book in the first place, but I’m not connecting to it in the moment, there may be a point in the future where the words and I click. The book — Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat — started off great, but then I lost interest around chapter five.
So I set it aside and tore through Heather Lende’s Find the Good. I’ll admit that I bought it due to the lemon on the cover. Looking at the lemon made me feel happy. The essays were set in her remote Alaskan town; a small slice of finding the good in every life.
In both cases, I was reading the book as part of my 15 minute improvement plan. I’ve stuck with it for about three weeks now, and I’m tracking it in my bullet journal. I may not be better… yet (growth mindset!), but I feel like I’m filling my head with helpful thoughts instead of scrolling through Facebook again.
Anyway, there are tons of posts out there telling people how to push on through and finish reading books that they start. And other posts out there telling people that it’s totally okay to stop reading a book because we’re adults now. But there’s nothing lukewarm out there telling people to pause and return to books. So I’m filling that gap?
Do I ever return to paused books? Yes. I can’t remember any off the top of my head right now, but I know I’ve done this. When I return to the book, I start over from the beginning. OH — Good Omens. There, that’s a book that I paused and returned to because while I liked it enough as I was reading it the first time, I could tell that I would probably really love the book if I read it at another time. And I was correct.
But there are many other paused books whose stories are suspended in figurative aspic. My goal is to come back to them one day. Maybe. If it ever feels right.
It’s not goodbye; it’s see you later.
Do you ever return to books you stop reading?
11 comments
I was just reading Eric Idle’s book and it was not doing anything for me, although I knew I wanted to read it. Plus it was due back at the library and I couldn’t renew. So I requested it again, and this time I feel much more engaged. It doesn’t happen too often, probably because I’m generally reading more than one book at a time. But, yes, I stop and restart a bit.
I do. I believe that a relationship has 3 parties: Person A, Person B, and Timing.
I think a relationship with a book is similar. Sometimes it’s just not the right time, but later may be the right time. A current example for me is Sacred Contracts by Carolyn Myss.
I do! I never thought about it as pausing before, but I do this all the time. I’ve gotten so much worse with my kindle, since having ten books on pause takes up the same amount of physical space as zero. I tend to know which ones I’ll never come back for and delete them or put them back on the shelf.
I do! I very rarely abandon a book entirely. (One that I did & still remember — a novel called “And Ladies of the Club” by Helen Hooven Santemeyer, back in the late 1980s/early 1990s — just couldn’t get into it.) I currently have two books I started, put down and haven’t returned to… yet. One was Jann Arden’s “Feeding My Mother.” It’s about her mother & Alzheimer’s disease (she recently passed away) — & I started it while I was visiting my own aging parents. Didn’t seem like good timing (lol) so I decided to set it aside for the time being. The other is “Mr. Churchill’s Secretary” by Susan Elia MacNeal — a mystery set in WWII (& the first in a series). Right up my alley, subject-wise, and it was good — but not as good as I’d hoped. Something else came along & I set it aside. I do intend to get back to it, eventually.
I do, but not often. I am paused in Life of Pi right now, it just wasn’t the right time for that one. I used to be an I MUST FINISH EVERY BOOK I START person, but life is too short to stay reading a book that you can’t stand when there are other amazing books to be read. Find the Good sounds amazing!
Your title made me laugh. We don’t have cable so my kids watch only Netflix Hulu and prime. If they need to go potty etc. they say “pause it” so they don’t miss any of their show. Sometimes when I’m reading to them and they need to go potty etc. they will say “pause the story.” 😂
I do sometimes. I go through periods when certain genres or authors’ writing styles are more or less appealing to me. So I might put aside a book that I know I will like, especially by a familiar author, if the time just isn’t right.
I’ve also had to pause books for reasons of circumstance: misplaced the book, library ebook loan expired before I finished it, realized that I was running out of time to read that month’s book club selection, or got busier at work. I generally go back to almost all of those books and finish them.
I agree with Lori. It’s timing. Sometimes I will start a book and pause it before I’m really involved.
I do occasionally go back to those books because generally that was a timing issue – I couldn’t get in to it at that moment. However if I am well into a book and just don’t love it, I either stick it out or stop altogether. I never return to those.
And like Working mom of 2….
My kids only watch DVR shows or Netflix so they can also “pause” anything and I’ll frequently hear them saying “pause the game” to one another when they play. It makes me laugh.
(They also “unpause” and the back and forth of pause/unpause is very reminiscent of Dwight Schrute’s shun/unshun of Andy on The Office. But that’s a tangent…)
Sometimes I pause books and sometimes I stop them. I get sidetracked with another book or something hapoens and my reading time is disrupted and I forget to go back to it. I have gone back and finished paused books but I have way too many on pause right now. My reading struggle is with nonfiction. If I generally know the subject matter, I just get bored with it or it doesn’t quite hold my attention or I want something more relaxing that doesn’t require me to focus on facts. Sigh. I have a lot of books to read for doula class, including your book, and have at least 4 of them on pause. How do I get myself to finish books I do want to read and finish?!
Yes, I absolutely do return to books, probably more often than I abandon altogether, I will save for a better time. Sometimes its something going on with me/my life that puts me in the wrong place for a certain story, sometimes I just don’t have time/bandwidth, and sometimes I’ve just read too many of the same “feel” and need a palate cleanser.
I agree with everyone else. Timing is everything. Sometimes, I’m not in the right mood for a book, but later I will lap it up. I have also become better at abandoning books though. Sometimes, a book does not deserve to be finished! If I give it two or three tries, and I’m still not captured by it, then maybe it isn’t just me. (Or maybe it is, and it just means the book is not for me.)