When To Stop Reading Part II

When it comes to books, is ok good enough? A while I go posted about when to stop reading a book that you were not enjoying. After ploughing through for a few reading sessions and genuinely giving it all I had, I decided to put the book down and move on . I thought that I had the 'when to stop reading' dilemma sorted, but in the last week it has reared it's ugly head again.

In order to commemorate Charles Dickens' Day which takes place on 7th February every year I decided that I would begin reading more of his work and where better to start than at the beginning? With the help of the internet I discovered that Dickens first novel was The Pickwick Papers and so headed to my local library and checked out the brick of a book. I eagerly started reading and found that it was definitely old fashioned, clearly satirical and had a certain kind of human. I thought that this would be enough to sustain my interest and yet here we are with Dickens' Day having past and I'm still not even a hundred pages through. From my previous post you might think that it would be an easy decision for me to simply stop reading and move onto something else. However, the issue with this book feels different to the disinterest that I felt with Amy and Roger's Epic Detour. 

The Pickwick Papers is a perfectly fine book to read when I'm actually reading. When I am literally engaged in reading it I am entertained, if somewhat passively. The problem lies when I put the book down. The thing about a good novel is surely that you long to get back to it. In the past when I am fully engrossed in a story I found myself not even caring about train delays, reasoning that this gives me more time to read. So I have a new question: When it comes to books, is ok good enough? 

After a few days thought my conclusion has to be no. I examined my reason for choosing this particular book and realised that I wasn't reading it for the right reasons. I was never really interested in this book in the way that I should have been from the beginning anyway. I didn't even read the blurb before deciding to read it. I chose to read this book purely based on the fact that it was the first of Charles Dickens' books. This can surely never be a good reason to read a book. Isn't this why we resented being told what to read in school? Maybe a different Dickens novel would keep my interest better or maybe Dickens just isn't my sort of thing at all and I think I have to learn to be ok with that. I have goals for my reading this year, but I think the danger is of them becoming quotas and that just isn't going to be fun. So, yes I do want to reach the goals I set myself in January but I have resolved to do it reading whatever it is that I am genuinely interested in reading.