How long do you keep reading?
Thursday, February 26, 2009 at 06:19PM 
One of my favorite authors, Dan Simmons, has a new book - Drood. It is not science fiction, is 800 pages long, and has received mixed reviews. And the Kindle version sells for $14.99 instead of the normal $9.99. All those extra bits and bytes for such a long book, I suppose. Simmon's last book, The Terror, was a grueling read. I think I may wait and check this one out from the public library.
The thought of starting such a long book started me thinking... How many pages do you give a book before you put it down and write it off as just "not for me"? The librarian's librarian, Nancy (Book Lust) Pearl, once gave this advice on NPR: Read 50 pages and if it hasn't grabbed you by then, give up. Unless you are over 50 years old. Then subtract your age from 100 and give up at that page number. (I can stop reading at page 44 now.) She opined that time becomes more valuable the less we have of it, so no use using those last few breaths reading something that doesn't grab you. Good point.
Is there a classic book you know you should like and have started a number of times but just can't get into? Catch 22 is that book for me. I want to like it, but I always give up.
Seth Godin in Revinventing the Kindle (part II) writes that e-books should change the reading experience:
8. Allow all-you-can-eat subscriptions if the author or publisher wants to provide it. Let me buy every book Seth has written, or all the business books I can handle, or "up to ten books a week." Remember, the marginal cost of a book is now the cost of the bandwidth to deliver it, so buffets make economic sense.
Just think of a Netflix for books. Just one of several interesting ideas about making reading more social as it becomes more digital Godin writes about.
I still can't get my head around how libraries will handle circulating digital books - or if they ever will. The whole economic raison d'etre for libraries - that it is cheaper to buy one book and share it than buy a book for every individual - isn't vaild when books, like songs, get down to a few cents a piece. And they will. The cost of cataloging, staffing, housing and delivering a print book - even if shared - would probably be more than just giving all citizens a voucher for all the books they could read. OK, I know it's not that simple.
Or is it?
Reader Comments (13)
100 pages sounds good, but I don't see a need for a rule of thumb. You'll know when you know. I got over thinking I had to finish every book long ago. Dan Simmons is also one of my favorites, but since he tries so many things they're obviously not all for me. I had to put down The Crook Factory, but I burned through all of his Hyperion and Olympus books. I breeze through some Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Cryptinomicon) but get bogged down in others.
One librarian I read about uses the 100 page rule with her reluctant readers. She knows they prefer shorter books, but when she has a longer one she thinks they might like she checks it out to them and asks that they please only read 100 pages to let her know if it's any good. They usually finish the whole thing.
As for the future of the e-book, I don't know. But I do know that until books like Saun Tan's The Arrival or a coffee table book of photos of Frank Lloyd Wright houses or nearly every children's picture book look any good on e-readers, librarians and libraries will still need a place for actual books.
Till I realize I'm bored! Or hate the writing style or not in the mood just now....
Atlas Shrugged
Some books are just long to be long. Other books need to be long because they are that complex. It's hard to quantify when you have had enough of something. My rule should be if I reread the page for the third time because I keep falling asleep... it's time for a new book.
Maybe economically it IS that simple -- but in reality, it can't be. The last few months have made abundantly clear around here, at least, that any enterprise wholly dependent on the power grid is worth a bit of worry. Besides its social function, which, in my neighborhood at least, is a large part of the attraction of the library, the bricks and mortar part offers us something that can still (praise be) be done when the power grid is down. well, ok, the actual building with the books in it might have to close -- but it you're lucky enough to have previously checked out a book or two, you can still read by candlelight or flashlight....That print format is not going away any time very soon, I'd wager.
No, I don't think it can be that simple--unless we assume that authors all do it just for fun, and that all authors write prose that doesn't need copyediting. Fact is, for most books, the cost of it being a physical item (platemaking, printing, paper, binding, distribution) is apparently rarely more than 1/7th of the price, and usually much less.
Actually, I suppose you could already give people a voucher for "all the ebooks you can read"--as long as you don't mind them all being public-domain works. For new stuff to be written, there needs to be some income, and vouchers would almost certainly only handle the "thick head" (the most popular authors).
(As for how many pages: I love the Nancy Pearl Rule, since it means I can give up at Page 37 with honor--but I usually go on a little further. Joyce's Ulysses was my nemesis, but I gave up after the second try.)
I hate to admit that Wuthering Heights was a book that I could never finish, no matter how many times I tried. I stop reading a book when I realized that I don't really care about the characters or what happens to them - usually giving it around 50 pages - but always more than one reading. I find that my own mood influences how I read. In high school I don't usually give students advice about how many pages to read before putting a book down. But I encourage them to try it on more than one sitting. Reluctant readers at this age need to have reassurance that it is OKAY to NOT LIKE a book. They've been forced so many times to read what others chose for them, that I encourage them to come back as many times as they like and we'll continue to help them find something.
As far as where libraries are headed - I know we have to look to the future. But why look 20 years down the road and guess as to how libraries will look? Did it help that we discussed this 20 years ago? The most important analyzing that we have to do as librarians is to constantly analyze who are patrons are today. Who are they? What do they have access to at home? What do they do in their spare time? What do they need from a library? What do they need from the librarian? How can I help them? How can I add something to their life? How can I help them be successful in school, their job ?
ADAPT CONSTANTLY ! Never get too far behind and always ask yourself, do I need to grow professionally to better serve my patrons?
Hi Ninja,
I guess it’s just those of us who still feel guilty abandoning a book part way through who need such a rule.
All the best,
Doug
Very practical, Jane.
Doug
dzukor,
If falling asleep while reading meant I should quit the book, I would never finish ANY book!
Doug
Hi mwilliams,
By your reasoning, we would never have switched from cooking over woodstoves since the electric ones might at times go out ;-)
Doug
Hi Walt,
I have really enjoyed following all the “alternative remuneration” schemes people, including Lessig, are dreaming up to compensate intellectual property creators. As the Kindle and other e-book readers move more books into digital form which makes copying and unauthorized distribution very simple, I suspect more of these schemes will be taken seriously.
I know with my own books, the revenue from royalties wouldn’t allow me to subsist in Bangladesh, but I do think they serve as a means of getting other work – speaking and consulting jobs, that do pay nicely.
I still worry about my beloved libraries and their future,
Doug
Hi Cathi,
I like your two sitting rule before giving up. Makes sense.
I really doubt we have 20 years before we need to deal with digital texts replacing print. But I agree with you that our current patrons’ need should be our focus. My question is: are we keeping up with kids now???
Great comments. Thanks,
Doug
I use the 50 page limit --- if it hasn't grabbed me by then, it's not going to happen. Fifty pages is a long time for kids when the book is 200+ pages. For kids I say read a chapter & go back later & try a few more pages. However, I do tell kids it's okay to not like a book --- that's why there are so many books -- to appeal to lots of different tastes and interests.
The digital books (ebooks) issue is one our library is struggling with now. We had some reference books in digital format & then one vendor last fall offered an additional 50 free titles as a promotion in digital format -- so now we have about 75 titles. The format to download to a student's home computer (can't download at school) was Adobe Reader. I can't say this has worked seamlessly however now that vendor has come up with their own reader program and we were advised to download it by March 2 in order to access the digital books in our library catalog. It would be terrific if you would comment in your blog on ideas for handling this technology. If makes perfect sense that kids would like to search books electronically if the whole procedure was easier to accomplish...
Thanks Linda
Actually, Doug, a Netfilx-like site for books already exists. It's called BookSwim.
As far as the number of pages to read before I put a book down I'm a relatively slow reader and a bit of a masochist to boot. So I'll read an awful lot before I give up entirely. I think personality has got to have something to do with it--not hard and fast rules. :<)
I have a Kindle and have found it's quite handy to have in the bathroom. I plowed my way through War and Peace (took over a year) and that last "chapter" is a doozy!
Hi Tom,
I keep a book by the throne myself. There are some books (poetry, humor) that seem particularly suited.
All the best,
Doug
Amazon allows you to download and read the first chapter of a book for free, to decide whether or not you want to buy it for the Kindle. I guess not all first chapters are 50 pgs, but you can get a pretty good idea. This feature was one of the more intriguing to me, with regard to the Kindle. Still, there's just something about holding a paper book in your hand. I hope they never go away completely!
Books that I felt I should have liked but couln't finish are Walden and more recently Galileo's Daughter. Yawn.
Hi rlburke,
Good reminder. Thanks. When I told this to my mother-in-law she was not impressed. She always reads the LAST chapter to make sure the book has a happy ending before she starts it!
Appreciate the comment,
Doug
I could never finish Portrait of a Lady; I tried reading it 3 different times over 2 years. I finally copped out and rented the movie, just to know how it ended. Sad, but true.