We were less than halfway around a circular walk when a friend’s visiting relative said she wanted to turn back because her new boots were stiff. I glanced at my friend, who is of my generation and approximate type of upbringing. We were both thinking: how does she think she’ll wear in her boots without tolerating discomfort? And what would it be like to think that transient discomfort, as opposed to mortal danger, is a reason to abort hillwalking?Of course, I said, we’ll head back whenever you like.I didn’t mind, not exactly. It was too hot for me anyway, and I had, as always, been up early to run a long way. I’d actually have been happier sitting in the garden with my visitors and my knitting and a cold drink, it was just that we’d said we’d climb this hill and therefore that was what we were doing.I’ve been climbing mountains all my life and I know there are times you have to turn back, before the accumulation of unanticipated events snowballs and you need Mountain Rescue. There’s an accident on the motorway so you reach the trailhead later than planned, which means you’ve lost the cushion of extra daylight at the end, and then a rockfall blocks the path and you have to tack around, and then someone leaves their waterproof at a rest stop and you’re one more minor mishap or change in weather from managing hypothermia high up in the dark. Somewhere around the blocked path, reroute, change your plans, head for home.But it’s another thing altogether to give up because of a known and trivial issue with equipment. I was at least as admiring of our visitor as judgmental: we weren’t, actually, ascending a peak. It was just a friendly stroll on a summer afternoon, undertaken as what mountaineers call “type 1 fun” (fun at the time, as opposed to “type 2″, which makes you glad you did it afterwards, and “type 3″, which makes a good story if you survive). I used to read books in a similarly completist mode. If I’d started, I was going to finish, partly because I thought it dishonest to judge an unfinished book, partly also because I had less money in those days and even a second-hand paperback was something of a commitment, but I applied the same logic to library books. Many of my parents’ generation were taught to think in the same way about food, compelled to finish a portion because it would be “wasteful” to leave it. (It seems to me a greater abuse of good cooking to eat it without pleasure than to put it in the compost, but I see how the experience of wartime rationing might have shaped other instincts.)I started to read more playfully or intuitively years ago, because I realised that feeling obliged to finish every volume I started was making me a more cautious and conservative reader than I needed and wanted to be. It’s hard to take a risk and experiment with writing you might not like, or might find difficult and unfamiliar, if you know you’ll be stuck with it to the bitter end. There are reasons to finish books that are not fun, because there are good reasons other than fun for reading. Maybe you are reading to be more knowledgeable, to understand something difficult, to expand your taste. Maybe you’re reading in your second or third or fourth language, for pleasure but also for practice. Maybe you’re reading because the book is on your reading list and you have to be ready to discuss it next week. Plough on: I am not advocating giving up as a general principle, in relation to books or anything else. Perseverance is a virtue, but like many virtues, it can become the other kind of vice, trapping us with unnecessary rigidity. If you use a library – as many of us who have lived elsewhere know, Irish public libraries are excellent – dip and taste and sample. If you find a book you love and want to read again, buy it. Run a distance that might be challenging, just carry your Leap card. Set off, literally or metaphorically, and see how far you get. Order a new dish, ideally one that your companion will finish if you don’t. Life expands when we play at the edges.