Book 'em, Danno

Perhaps with enthusiasm, perhaps with trepidation, you pick up a book to read, but as you go along you realize the book is not for you. A decision must be made: should the reading continue, or be given up? It is almost as though there's a fear that somewhere lurked a cadre of reader police waiting to arrest whoever balks at finishing a book.

Very different is the student assigned to read a book. He or she may find deceitful or ethically-challenged means to get around not only not finishing a book, but not starting it. They enlist the internet or maybe Masterplots and its ilk.

But it is the voluntary, reading-for-pleasure persons who feel the mystic obligation to slog on to the final page. Some who won't think twice about slipping aconite into a spouse's coffee will be nudged by guilt to finish a mammoth volume they hate from the get go.

Reading is the single form where this compunction dominates. People switch away from a television program, walk out of a movie, ruthlessly turn off a music CD, surf sporting events, nod during a speech, or daydream as a story is related.

There is a workaround for those who want to proclaim that they finish any book they start. They can follow the example of Forrest J Ackerman. The collector of a vast library of science fiction and fantasy books would tell listeners, “I've read every last word in every book in my collection,” then add “When I get a new book I turn to the last page--and read the last word!”

3D Libraries

Soon you will not be able to tell a library from a shop class. Slowly becoming home to 3D printers, libraries aren't so much a natural fit for them as other places offer a rounder hole for this square  technology peg. However, should 3D printing become popular and profitable enough, established places will accommodate themselves or new niches will crop up, luring away the audience that libraries fostered.