How to pick a novel to read that you won't lose interest in.

I used to have a problem with not finishing novels that I had started to read. Midway through, they would become a chore and I'd lose interest. This was irritating because of the time and money being wasted.

Then I discovered that the secret of enjoying a novel was not following recommendations, however glowing. I found that novels are only interesting to me when they help me to decode some aspect of my inner life in some way. For example, I believe that a lot of readers find military fiction interesting because a military career is an interesting metaphor for the idea of careers in general. While you are reading the larger than life vicissitudes of Captain Aubrey and Mr. Maturin in Patrick O'Brien's novels, there a place in the back of your mind where you are processing what's going on in your more life-sized career and sorting things out a little better. There was a time when I got transferred to a new assignment that required me to change my daily thirty minute commute to a two hour one, and I certainly found that to be "a hard service."

So what you do to pick a novel that will hold your interest is to read the jacket cover and some reviews - not to get recommendations - but to find out enough of what the novel is about to be able to ask yourself "what is in this novel that rings a bell with me?" If you listen to the little voice inside your head that goes "ah ha!" then you will get better at picking novels that will hold your interest.

Reading a novel is a personal experience. Personal experiences are notoriously hard to share or transmit. They certainly cannot be "recommended." And who wants to be a clone anyway?