Re:Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?
by carlosjobim on Friday November 07, 2025 @07:09AM
(#45845607)
> I stopped forcing myself to finish books that bored me.
This is the solution. If a book is boring you, skip a few pages, skip a chapter, put it away and get another book, or delete it / throw it away.
I used to read a lot in high school and then lost the habit as I went through undergrad. The way I got back into it was by ignoring best sellers and hype titles and the feelings of "I should read this because all my hacker friends keep referring to it".
I started reading a lot more fiction, especially stories from my country and culture. I stopped forcing myself to finish books that bored me. And because this is expensive to do, I bought physical books from a used books store instead of 1-click-buys on my Kindle.
Eventually, this built enough reading muscle for me that I moved to reading more ambitious things and I was able to persevere longer and battle through some really boring stuff (on topics that I cared about).