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Someone has been meaning to finish a book for eight months, and it’s currently sitting on a shelf, a nightstand, or crammed into a bag. They purchased it because it was recommended, because it won a prize, or because a friend put it in their hands with the urgency of someone who needs you to… Read more: The argument for reading books you will never finish

Some readers are patient, a little stubborn, and possibly burned out from giving up too soon. They understand what it’s like to almost give up on a book on Tuesday night and then finish it all at once on Saturday. Around chapter three or four, something became clear. The slow-moving prose became deliberate. The previously… Read more: The books that take three chapters to start and then become impossible to put down

Most readers have a book with a bookmark stuck somewhere around page 80 in their homes. It’s been there for several months. Perhaps longer. The book is on the coffee table, the nightstand, or a corner of the shelf; it isn’t exactly being read, but it’s also not quite going back into the unread pile.… Read more: The case for reading books you will never finish

When you reach for a book you’ve already read, a certain type of guilt sets in. Nearby, accusatory, is the pile that needs to be read. The screen of your phone is staring back at your Goodreads challenge. Somewhere on the internet, a BookTok influencer is effortlessly going through three titles each week. In this… Read more: The forgotten art of rereading – and the books that demand it

When you first enter someone’s house, it is nearly impossible to ignore the bookshelf, if one exists. It merely holds objects while sitting on the wall, but it conveys information that the host never meant to share. Two airport thrillers and a single copy of Marcus Aurelius. A line of cracked-spine Ottessa Moshfegh novels. Suspiciously… Read more: What the books on your shelf say about the person you think you are