Your first month is free in The New York Times app. Download now → Good morning. There are good reasons to abandon books we’re not enjoying, but our attenuated attention might lead us to tap out too early.
Quit litThe book-tracking app Goodreads added a “Did Not Finish” (DNF) designation this spring so that readers can log books that they’ve put down or abandoned. The change, Erik Piepenburg reported in The Times, provoked an online debate: Is it a cop-out to DNF? As a reader who has been known to graze on books as if at a grand buffet, tasting a little bit of everything, I enter this discourse bashfully. I feel strongly that life’s too short to spend time on books one doesn’t like. But sometimes I wonder if the problem isn’t with the books but with me: impatient, seduced by novelty, impossible to satisfy. When I told my friend Leigh that some people refuse to forsake books, she responded with outrage. “Why would you bother with a book you’re not enjoying? There are a million books,” she told me, as if I hadn’t sampled the first chapter of most of them. “This sounds like vestigial Puritanism.” Indeed, but one needs to give a book a fair shake before deciding it would be punishing to continue. It takes a minute to engage with a book, to get a sense of the author’s voice and style, to understand what the book is doing. We like when books “grab” us, when they are “impossible to put down.” We’ve gotten used to the grabbiness of the internet, the posts and memes and videos that seize our attention and hold it hostage. I know I’m guilty of tapping out too early. I do it with books, but also with shows and movies. My attention struggles to distinguish between a novel and a TikTok video, between art and content, between being grabbed and being beckoned. The most compelling reason to see a book through to the end is also the simplest: “It feels good to finish stuff,” one of the people Erik interviewed said. This is no small thing. Adding a book to my Completed list is incredibly satisfying. Even if I didn’t love the book, I’ve accomplished something. I’ve taken the journey the author intended. I’ve allocated my attention to something for a significant duration — a tiny modern miracle. My friend Alice is one of the healthiest readers I know. She reads quickly and widely and is always ready with a recommendation. I figured she was a closer, a never-DNFer, the type to finish a book by hook or by crook. “I could be 90 percent of the way through and I’ll dump it,” she told me, to my surprise. “I’ll dump anything! I’d let the fork fall from my mouth if I’m halfway through a dinner I don’t like.” And yet Alice finishes more books than anyone I know. I never hear about the ones she abandons, because she does it quickly and without fanfare, without self-excoriation. She’s not keeping a public record of her DNFs, as Goodreads’s new feature encourages her to. Not finishing a book isn’t the same as never finishing a book. There’s no shame in putting aside a book that you don’t like, but finding a book that you do like takes commitment. You might try a few bites from the carving station or the chafing dishes, but eventually you sit down and eat a proper meal.
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Melon Salad With Nectarines, Tomatoes and BasilEmbodying the “do very little to perfect ingredients” philosophy of cooking, this lovely melon salad with nectarines, tomatoes and basil from Hannah Shizgal-Paris of Roman’s restaurant in Brooklyn (as adapted by Ligaya Mishan) showcases the season’s best produce. The genius here is seasoning each component separately and building flavors gradually. Capers and pecorino provide bursts of intensity against the sweet fruit, while a squeeze of lemon ties it all together.
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