Hello Everyone,
Hope you all are doing well. Today, in this post I will talk about what ‘One Hundred Years of solitude’ book taught me about reading.
I remember I was very eager to read the book, ‘One hundred years of solitude.’ I have always read good reviews about the book, and moreover, I have never read any of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s books. It was in my TBR list for a very long time, so finally, when one of my friends gave this book to me, I was very happy. But my excitement dissipated when I started reading it. I did not enjoy the book at all. But in this process, I learnt something, and that is what I am going to share with you today.
It has always been very difficult for me to leave a book in between. Even if I am not enjoying it, I would try my best to finish it. In fact, there are very few books which I have left in between, one can count them on fingers.
One of the reasons for not being able to leave a book in between is that I always think that something good will come up and I will enjoy the book. Or how can I decide I don’t like the book if I haven’t even read it whole.
Secondly, I always thought of finishing it and counting it among the books I have read. I would always think about the time have utilized in reading the book, would consider it as wastage of time as I can’t even count the book in my ‘Read books list.’ I would not think that if I am not enjoying the book, even though it is in my ‘Read books list’ I am wasting my time. So instead of thinking about reading for fun, I was reading for the number of books I have read.
While reading ‘One hundred years of Solitude’ book, I realized that I am not enjoying it at all. But I was stubborn enough to keep on going with it. It is 420 pages long book and I read around 300 pages of it. But let me tell you what happened while reading these 300 pages.
I started loathed my reading time. In fact, I became irregular with my reading habit. It took me around 2 months to finish these 300 pages. Moreover, I was not looking forward to my reading time as I always do. Finally, when I decided that I will leave the book, I realized I am into a reading slump. I could not read any book. Whatever I picked up, I just didn’t like it. It took me 1-1.5 months to get over this reading slump. I would detest reading a thick book, or a classic, or anything with slightly difficult language. It was an Agatha Christie book, and a children’s book which finally helped me out in getting over the reading slump.
So what did I learnt from this experience? I learnt that it is okay to leave a book, I am reading for fun, to enjoy reading, not to increase the number of books I have read. I have also made some rules so that I won’t have such a bad reading slump again. Here are the rules:
- I make sure that whenever I am disrelishing my reading time, or at any point, I realize I am not enjoying the book I will leave it.
- If I am reading a non-fiction book, and I really want to give the book a chance, I would skip a few chapters. It helps me in getting over the boredom and I won’t regret leaving a book to which I want to give a chance.
- I read somewhere, and I really liked the idea. Read the book 20%, if you are still not liking it and enjoying it, then leave it. If a book cannot grab your attention or interest in its first 20%, then it is unlikely that you will enjoy this book.
Lastly, I would like to say that if I am not enjoying a book it does not mean that the book is not good. This book is really a good one, and I have always heard and read good reviews about it. Maybe I was not in the right phase to enjoy the book. Maybe in future, I would give it a second chance and would love it as most people do. It is just I didn’t enjoy it at that time, but the book still taught me a good lesson about reading.
And with this, we have come to the end of this post. If you are looking forward to reading some classics, then here is a book review of one of the classics by George Orwell, give it a read. I will see you with another post. Till then, keep celebrating life!
With Love,
Komal
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