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Two of my favorite books - God Emperor of Dune and Anathem - did not hook me until 2-300 pages. I don’t like this advice as it would make me miss these amazing books.

The challenge with the advice is that is I want ok experiences, it works. But if I’m looking for amazing experiences it cuts them off. Lots of art is difficult until the switch that makes it worthwhile. If I followed the advice to only meet my immediate, hedonistic needs to be happy then I wouldn’t have as much overall happiness.

Especially since one great book may be as enjoyable as 100 marginal books.

Of course, it’s also important to try to figure out how to avoid all the other terrible books that just never get better.

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> I don’t like this advice as it would make me miss these amazing books.

Abandoning a book does not mean you can never pick it up again. I have abandoned media that I didn’t like only to return to it years later and enjoy it.

> The challenge with the advice is that is I want ok experiences, it works. But if I’m looking for amazing experiences it cuts them off.

That would only be true if all amazing experiences sucked at the start, which is absolutely not true.

> Lots of art is difficult until the switch that makes it worthwhile.

And lots of it is worth it all the way through, or has something that makes you believe it will deliver if you stick with it.

> Especially since one great book may be as enjoyable as 100 marginal books.

And because our time is finite, if we abandon those 100 we may have the opportunity to find 5 great books instead of 1.

Using the word abandon absolutely implies you'll never pick it up again.

> While all these words mean "to give up completely," abandon stresses finality and completeness in giving up.

per https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/abandon

You may be using it hyperbolically, but if you go out of your way to clarify you don't mean it why use the hyperbole in the first place?

The point of this piece is that you should accept never coming back to things removed from your river - Buddhist attachment, etc.

I think my response comes down to having an absolute rule like this is not a good idea.

My practice is to have a set rule about when to continue and when to put away. And I think that’s ok.

I’m all for people having their own heuristics that work for them, but don’t like sharing an easy to follow rule that may be harmful but is followed just because it’s simple and easy.

It seem especially funny that a literature professor would have such a rule as there are so many great books in literature that are difficult and unpleasant while I’m reading them but I’m glad I did.

I’m reminded of a colleague who said something like “every morning a 5am I don’t want to go to the gym and I want to quit the whole time because it’s not fun, but after I finish I never regret having done it.”

Don't you think you're being a little uncharitable to the advice?

The experience between struggling with a complex work that you feel has something to tell you vs. being disappointed by low-quality schlock isn't hard to differentiate. Telling people to 'just power through it no matter what' results in a lot of wasted time, and potentially worse, a diminished joy in reading itself.

I certainly don’t think people should continue on with terrible books or power through everything. If I have schlock I don’t want to give it 50 pages and it may be worth quitting at 5 pages, or 15, or even on the cover.

I’m not sure I’d have very useful advice other than to think about what they read and why and to constantly adjust their to read and am reading list of books.

> God Emperor of Dune

I feel this way about Dune Messiah, except I didn't appreciate it until after Children of Dune. Dune is one of my favorite books, if not my favorite. Dune Messiah is a *frustrating* read right after Dune. It's not until you see the whole story of the first three books as one narrative arc that it becomes enjoyable.

I think this method works because it exposes you to more books than you'd otherwise get to, increasing the chances you'll find a great one.

Perhaps, but how does it expose me to more books. What is this method compared to?

I don’t think there are only two options- quit after 50 pages or always finish. You certainly shouldn’t always finish, but I don’t think you should always read 50 pages either.

Im more in the camp of “having to rule is better than following this rule.”

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