I shall practice self-development.

"I've really wanted to read this!" I say, and pick it up.
She says I can have it. I pick it up, reluctantly.

I remember to take it home. Two hours later,
When I'm ready to read, (casting aside all its predecessors)
I proceed to begin. (Skip author's note and, hm, preface)
Midway through the first page, I half-giggle,
and so I pause and think, the writing's quite wry.
In five pages' time, I stop to consider a twist in the tale.
Oh! This is a book which cares about holding my attention!
A chapter later, I have checked my phone again, and
told myself to call my parents in ten minutes.
In five, I recall calls I have not made,
WhatsApp buzzes to life, my mind stutters over
A sentence it has not read thrice now...for that matter,
The whole paragraph is looking unfamiliar.
And those calls must be made. Dinner cooked.
Bath taken. I wish someone would read it out to me.
Audiobooks are flat and always in the wrong accent.
I cast a doleful look at the four books I still say I'm reading.
And the newspaper. And work.

And on the inside, this:
This time I imagine as entirely my own is peeling away like dead skin, scattering as dust, deserving to be painful but I haven't the sensitivity.  If each moment were a coin pouring into a vault and I in it, I could suffocate in anticipation. So what if this eight-hour long book will soften several thousand hours to come? Perhaps I will find a summary on the internet.