The authors' view
It's not just the ordinary public who succumb to reader's block. Even writers often find they cannot get beyond a book's first few pages

Interviews by Heidi Blake, Aida Edemariam and Charlotte Northedge
writing in The Guardian , Friday July 25 2008

Alain de Botton, writer (left)

Have you ever experienced reader's block?

I often go through periods when I feel a need to take stock, think and generally not read very much. My mind isn't blank, just too dense with thoughts that need untangling. How do you overcome it? Sometimes I can't "get into" any books, usually because I'm at a stage of forming a set of interests. So I feel as if nothing interests me, when in fact, I'm just growing into an interest. Forcefeeding books is as risky as forcefeeding food. One has to let the appetite arise naturally - and the constant pressure to read new prizewinning books can give one an unhealthy sense of guilt about periods when the mind is just idle - as it needs to be regularly to digest experiences.

This story is well worth reading, link here to The Guardian online.