Advice wanted: How to put down a book?

Continuing the theme started by CC in the last post… 

Given that at heart we all are a bunch of reading addicts, I figure this is the place to ask this question.  (Well, ok, any question really, but this is one that’s been plaguing me* for a while now.)  How do you make yourself put down a book that you’re into when you need to go to bed, or go grocery shopping, or feed your family, or go to work, or really do just about anything else? 

This is something I find really, really hard.  Really. Hard.  I regularly stay up too late reading, which quite often means I’ll be getting a beaut of headache the next day.  I’ve been known to binge read 3-4 books on a weekend, ignoring the need to do laundry, feed myself, or interact with human beings outside my own head.

And this is not a new thing.  As I child, my mom would call us to dinner, and I would reluctantly walk to the table in slow motion, reading my book along the way.  I wouldn’t put my book down until the very last minute before the prayer.  At night, I would often pretend to sleep, but have my book smuggled under the covers, ready to read by my night light once the coast was clear.  No wonder I’ve always had lots of headaches.

So how do you do it?  How do you make yourself put a book down?  Because short of hiring a hunk to forcibly remove a book from my hands when needed, I’m out of ideas.

74 comments September 4th, 2008