Either your mind wants to read or it doesn't. That is a matter of interest. Some books become a chore to finish. Choose books that tweak your interests and you will want to finish; you will seek that feeling again with other books and articles. However, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes the motivation redirects you.
In the early 1980s my mother was going through the downhill spiral that is Alzheimer's Disease. I was reading a lot so I could stay near her but stay quiet. At the time I was focusing on science fiction and fantasy novels to keep up my interest levels. I ran across an epic fantasy novel, sword and sorcery variety, in four parts i.e. a quadralogy (like a trilogy but one more book). It started OK but became incredibly tedious. At the end of the story and the 4th volume, the only message I found was that there was a little bit of good and a little bit of bad in each of us. But it took about 5 inches of shelf space and over $10 (in 1985 dollars) and a full 10 days to get all the way through it.
My motivation changed because I was furious at the author (whose name I will not mention for legal reasons) for imposing such terrible trivialities on his readers. And at that moment, a part of me said "You can do better." Over the next month, I was doing some other reading but I kept coming back to that trivial, trite, and boring quadralogy. Finally that part of me that was outraged said, "Put up or shut up." And that is when I took up writing as a hobby. I now have 5 complete sword and sorcery novels in a continuing series, 1 more member of the series that is about 50-60% complete, and 1 divergent-topic space-opera about 90% complete. No publications yet but I have some very nice rejection letters and one offer from a vanity press. (But that doesn't really count as an acceptance so I didn't take them up on it.)
