My experience is that my motivation for consuming books is cyclic. Part of it is due to other interests and commitments...I read almost nothing for pleasure during grad school and then spent what felt like every non-working moment reading for the next year. Then there have been two periods where I read <i>The Economist</i> cover to cover <i>every</i> week. The first was two years the second was one...well almost or maybe most of one.<p>That sort of hits on the other major reason for cyclic reading. My tastes and interests change. Sometimes the right book comes along at the wrong time...and sometimes the same right book comes along twice, by which I mean that one of the interesting things about getting older is that rereading books is not rereading the <i>same</i> book. The greater narrative of which it is a part has changed as I have changed.<p>One of the other features of getting older is that <i>not</i> finishing a book doesn&#x27;t bother me anymore. I&#x27;m ok if a book doesn&#x27;t speak to me or stops speaking to me. I enjoy finishing books, but don&#x27;t see not doing so as quite the moral failing I once did. Maybe I&#x27;ll come back. Maybe it wasn&#x27;t that good. Maybe it&#x27;s overdue. Reading for pleasure is supposed to be pleasurable and the suffering of a hard book or long book or a challenging book has to be worth it, and making it worth it is the <i>author&#x27;s</i> responsibility, not mine.<p>Anyway, not having time is the biggest constraint, e.g. currently the time slot that I had been using to read is being used to journal. It&#x27;s a tradeoff.<p>Good luck.