There is a particular sort of panic that arrives when you realise everyone else has finished the book. They have reviewed it. Rated it. Highlighted their favourite passages. They have moved on to something else entirely, while your bookmark remains lodged somewhere around page 173.
So you begin to hurry. Reading, somewhere along the way, has become something to complete.
“Some books are not meant to be finished. They are meant to be lived with.”
When we remember the books we have loved most, we rarely remember how quickly we read them. We remember where we were. We remember the sentence we read three times because we understood it too well.
There will always be another recommendation, another list and another book waiting. Let them wait. Read twenty pages tonight. Forget what page you're on. Stay somewhere longer than necessary.