Once upon a time, we took great pride in the fact that we always finished books. For reasons more perverse than practical, we would slog through to the bitter end, if only to figure out how the thing got published. Then books started piling up, littered with bookmarks stuck in the middle, some closer to the beginning than we’d care to admit. Still, we maintained the fiction of finishing everything we started long after it became apparent that we were fooling nobody.
This, of course, is not something we’d admit in public. We have our reputation to consider. Also there is a certain snob factor in being able to suggest you are better than everyone else. For someone, let’s call him, oh, Paul Wells, to admit he doesn’t finish books takes a lot of personal courage. The world doesn’t suffer quitters lightly. Wells takes his shame a step further, admitting:
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t abandon every book at the halfway point. Sometimes I give up way before that.
