Reasons to begin reading a book
- Recommended — by a friend, or associate, or another author (not a relative).
- Author has established credentials.
- Referenced in the bibliography of another book.
- Fits your preferred genres.
- Other, that is, random selection, serendipity, cover, tag line, subject matter.
Reasons to keep reading a book
- Recommended.
- Author’s credentials.
- First page lured me in.
- First 1000 words engaged me.
- First 3000 words gave me a feeling of the story arc.
Of these reasons to keep reading, the first two are IN SPITE of the last three. By that I mean, even if the first page sucks, or the first 1000 words were flat and dull, if the book was recommended, or is by an establish name, you would feel compelled to keep reading beyond your tolerance for schlock.
In my mind, no one is going to recommend my books. I won’t have an established name. So, I’d better damn well make sure I kick the reader’s ass in the first 300, 1000, 3000 words.
Thoughts?
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
To add a bit to the subject = I find reading books utterly boring. There are people who read books very quickly = there is a way they teach toy how to read a book very quicky but I can’t do it as I commit the worse scenario in reading books which is vocalising what I’m reading and that is no, no, no
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I’ve been thru the same problem recently (that’s why I start reading a book and then why I continue reading it. I found that reading a book is a bit like meditation. =I can’t think of anything when I’m reading. So that equals calming the mind. However a lot of books are like a movie and are sensational. There is certain way writers write a book. The main idea of the book takes (hard to calculate) maybe 10-20% of the content and then most of the book is a filler = book needs to be reasonably thick otherwise nobody will buy it.
Once I buy a book I try to force mysels to read it otherwise I would cry that I wasted my money. THat’s only a little bit of the whole thing I would write.
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I’m afraid the truth is much more sad:
http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/01/book-reading-2016-appendix-a/
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