Failure in reading hard books
It happens very often with me that some quotation or topic from a particular book catches my eye, and I become eager to read that book. However, after a couple of days of trying hard to read it and blaming myself for not being able to do it, my limited knowledge of the topic forces me to give up.
Here, I am primarily referring to scientific books, as it is expected of readers to have some basic knowledge about the topic. On a preliminary level, a scientific book might seem easy, but the bitter truth is that a lack of familiarity with the topic will eventually become a hurdle. For example, I came to know about a book, Life on a little-known planet by Howard Ensign Evans, last week from a friend of mine. As soon as I read a paragraph, I became excited. Since this book belongs to natural history on insects, I thought it would be fun to learn about insects. Nevertheless, after three days of trying, I gave up today.
Two main reasons for this failure are unfamiliarity with American insect names and the scientific naming system. Both types of naming are completely alien to me. I can still survive with scientific naming as it has a fixed format: species name + insect name, but the American version is tricky due to cultural differences.
Anyway, the end result is unwillingly giving up reading this book, which I hate to do, but right now I can only deal with my own criticism seldomly. Each time I do it, my conscience feels guilty for abandoning a chance to learn new things.