How do you pick up a book you stopped reading weeks ago?

The checklist

1. Minute 1. Find your last clear page. Not where the bookmark is: the last page you remember clearly. For an audiobook, the last line you remember hearing.
2. Minutes 2 to 4. Catch up on the story up to that page. Use your own session notes if you have them; otherwise a recap that stops at your page (options below). Do not search the web for a summary; it will usually include the ending.
3. Minutes 5 to 6. Rebuild the cast. Write the five or six names that matter on an index card, with a few words each. A cast list from a recap tool can do this for you.
4. Minutes 7 to 9. Reread the last two pages you remember. This brings back the voice and the rhythm of the book, which a summary cannot.
5. Minute 10. Read forward. Set a timer for ten more minutes and keep going.

The rule that saves the most books: catch up to your page, never past it. A spoiler is not just annoying; for many readers it removes the reason to keep going.

Where to get a recap that stops at your page

With Magic Bookmark, steps 2 and 3 are one step: you photograph the page you are on, or type the last line you heard, and read a recap and a cast list built only from what you have read. You can also ask a question such as "who is this again?" and get an answer that stops at your page. Our Magic Bookmark guide explains which books it covers and what it costs.

When to restart from the beginning instead

• You remember almost nothing, and the book is one you love enough to reread.
• The book's pleasure is in the prose, not the plot, and a summary misses the point.
• It is short enough that rereading takes less than an evening.

When to quit instead

If you finish the checklist and feel no pull to read on, that is useful information. You stopped for a reason. Our DNF rule is there for exactly this: quit, write one line about why, and pick a book you want. The full method for abandoned books is in Coming back to a book you abandoned.