A remark by a best-selling author caught the attention of Tameside Radio's Breakfast presenter this week. What's your view?

If you’re reading this column, the chances are you’re someone who’s a fan of books as well as newspapers.There tends to be a correlation between the two, and I salute you heartily. 

There would be no call for this weekly column without you reading it with a cup of tea and a nice chocolate biscuit, and for your time I thank you heartily.

A remark caught my attention this week which Mark Billingham came out with at Cheltenham Literary Festival.

Essentially, the best-selling crime author of titles like Cry Baby and Rabbit Hole said if a book hasn’t gripped you after 20 pages, you should just give up on it. Not only that, he’s implied you ought to ‘throw it across the room angrily’. Let’s just hope it’s not a copy of War and Peace or Catch-22. Has anyone ever honestly finished these titles?

I have to confess I have many books awaiting my attention, and I work hard to stop myself buying more in the meantime. 

Having said that, there is always something thrilling about a leisurely browse in a book shop, then selecting a new title that you like the sound of, based on either the blurb on the back or the snazzy cover artwork. 

I realise the latter is a smidge shallow, but there’s a reason people are paid the big bucks to design them to be as eye-catching as possible.

Perhaps my biggest ever ‘getting away with it’ moment was filling in at the last minute for Radio 4’s Mark Lawson at a book launch event in Harrogate for Dan Brown’s most recent title, Origin. 

It was at a sold-out Royal Hall, and I ended up hosting a Q&A with an author whose books I had never read! 

I was praying Mr Brown wouldn’t catch me out live on stage with a vexing question about a plot detail, but luckily he was absolutely charming and it went really well. 

I still have a signed copy of the book waiting on my shelf. I’ve just looked and it’s a whopping 480 pages. 

I might need to take a couple of days off the Tameside Radio show just to tackle it.

Anyway, I digress a trifle, in the style of a few books I’ve read. 

Returning to Mark Billingham’s remarks, are you someone who perseveres to the end of a book you’re really not enjoying, or do you like Mark think that life is too short? I’d love to know!

According to some statistics number crunched by book boffins, 15.8 per cent of readers give up after fewer than 50 pages. 27.9 per cent give it 50 to 100 pages. 7.6 per cent reach the dizzy heights of 100 pages. 10.6 per cent fall at a later fence. An impressive 38.1 per cent say they ‘finish no matter what.’

Mark Billingham is a cracking author, and I’ve enjoyed several of his books right to the end. I also did an outside broadcast with him once on a bus! 

He says he can’t understand his wife’s insistence on finishing every tome she reads like it’s a ‘war of attrition.’ 

Billingham argues a comedian can’t step out on stage and inform their crowd the funny stuff should come in about 10 minutes’ time. 

He apparently chucks five in every ten books he begins across the room. I can only assume he is a good aim, as I guarantee I’d knock my cup of tea over doing this.

So which are you? A dogged reader who continues to the end, like me? I recently read a terrible book which was such hard going. I got to the end, and it had no twists in the final pages to redeem itself, yet still I felt a little self-satisfied that I’d made it. 

Others would argue life’s too short, and I’m wasting mine. I’m the same with films. I never ever switch them off, in the hope they might improve. It drives my wife Sofia bananas. She’s endured many Nicolas Cage turkeys as a result that would rival the plumpest bird at Christmas.

Right, now this is written, I’m going to have a go at the first chapter of that Dan Brown book. 

If you’re into books, the Raworth’s Literature Festival hits Harrogate later this month if you fancy a trip across to Yorkshire, featuring some brilliant authors. 

Thank you for reading right to the end. You’re lovely.

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