One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn as a reader is when to abandon a book. But you must. You won’t read all the books you want to because there is not enough time. Life’s too short to be struggling through a book you aren’t enjoying.
Second this, Metamorphosis is a good quick read and was also my introduction to Kafka.
I have been reading The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East by Nicholas Morton which I am really enjoying. Nicholas has a clear way of describing events and putting them into context without getting too dry with it. I am also reading A Vast Conspiracy: The inspiration for Impeachment by Jeffrey Toobin which I am a little over half way into, but I am considering just giving up. I have been pecking away at this book for probably 2 months now. It’s just too long winded. I don’t need to know every single conversation, meeting, plot, dinner that people had - I feel this would have made an incredible long-form article in something like the New Yorker but a multi hundred page book seems to be pushing it for me.
I don’t believe for one second any citizen believes this is a good use of time or resource. Absolutely ridiculous.