No, really, I don't make the reading rules
On the one hand, there was some bloke saying that if you're not into the book after 20 pages, you should hurl it at the wall -
- and on the other hand, there was someone, and it was on Twitter and one cannot always be sure what the user name signifies and I'm not even sure if I saw the initial tweet that kicked the debate off, but this sort of dutiful prescriptivism had a certain macho tone to me, was saying that if you've started, you should finish, and not be a wimp -
(Probably thinks there should be a 'a dumb, dark, dull, bitter belly-tension' between book and reader, what?)
And you know, I think one should take books easy, as the leaves grow on the tree, and one does not need to miserably keep grinding through them, and if you're not enjoying them, putting them gently down and picking up something else is in order. (Okay, there are books that should not be lightly set aside but hurled away with great force, but in most cases it is not such an extreme matter but the wrong book at the wrong time or a mismatch of taste.)
After all, authors don't feel vibrations in the ether when somebody slams their book shut or just doesn't pick it up after putting it down. (Do they? I don't.)
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