It's Official - I'm a Quitter

At the end of January our (mini) Book Club chose The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt as our next offering. I went out and bought it along with two other books as Waterstone's were having one of their perennial 3-for-2 offers, and also as a small treat to myself for losing a stone in weight (yay me!)

So, I started the book and enjoyed the first ten pages or so, then something really minor annoyed me and it all went downhill from there. 150 pages later (just about a quarter of the way through), I had to admit defeat. This is only the third book that I can ever remember actually giving up on, the other two being Emma by Jane Austen and Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, both of which I still have on my bookshelf and sincerely hope to return to one day. But I dislike The Children's Book so much that I've already sold it on eBay. I had a sudden epiphany while reading it that life is too short to slog your way through something that you actually have a choice over, and here I had the choice to give up or keep going with a book that I really wasn't enjoying and was almost coming to resent giving my time to, and so I chose to stop. To Quit.

My name is Justine and I'm a Book Quitter.

That's not my only confession. I'm also a Book Buyer and a Book Hoarder. I blame the Oxfam Book Shop - since one opened in Reading and another in Henley (several years back, now) I just can't help but pop in and see what catches my eye. It's not like I need any more books, but it's like an addiction. There are 126 unread books on my bookshelf. Let's say it takes a month to read each one, I have 10.5 years worth of books to get through. No wonder hubby refused to buy me any more for Christmas.

Anyway, I've now moved on to The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith, number whoknowswhat in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, which I love. I won't be quitting this one.