Name: Book-block.
Symptoms: Tension headaches, chronic anxiety.
Treatment: There is only one known cure: give up.
Is this another name for writer’s block? Actually, it’s more like reader’s block, and 54% of people suffer from it, according to a new survey of 2,000 adults by the Reading Agency.
What is that? A charity that wants to make people read more.
Don’t people already read their phones all the time? That doesn’t count. It has to be books.
Why? What makes books good for you but phones bad? Dunno. Books are old, probably. Anyway, the point is that people sometimes get stuck in the middle of a book they aren’t enjoying for as long as three months.
Can’t they just, you know, stop reading it? No, it seems that many of them can’t. Fully 22% of those surveyed insist that you should always finish any book you start.
Crikey. Better not start anything too demanding, in that case. Absolutely. The books that caused the most cases of blockage were Fifty Shades of Grey, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Yes, well, um ... Those are all quite long. But today is World Book Night!
What does that mean? It’s when the publishing industry gives away some specially selected books to promote reading.
I see. So like a library, except someone else tells you what to read? A bit like that, yes. And it’s why the Reading Agency says now is the time for sufferers from book-block to “quit-lit”.
As in, “I’ve had enough of this book. I’m going to quit-lit”? I guess.
And these people want to advise me on good writing? Don’t be such a grouch. The point is that people should feel free to give up a book they don’t enjoy and replace it with something better. In the survey, 91% of people said that reading has a positive effect on mental health.
That’s a lot. Indeed. “As this research shows,” says Sue Wilkinson, the chief executive of the Reading Agency, “reading can have a hugely positive impact on our health and wellbeing.”
It doesn’t show that! It only shows that people think it. She thinks it anyway.
Do say: “Wouldn’t ‘boring books’ be a better name for this condition?”
Don’t say: “Maybe if people stopped claiming that books were good for you we’d stop feeling like we had to finish them.”
