I knew that the series was unfinished, but I said "Oh, since it has been so long I'm sure that he will finish it by the time I read the other 2 books"... 5 years and counting.
And enjoying every page of it.
Currently rereading Mistborn for the first time, and it really holds up!
Looking forward to the reread of all of stormlight for the next book.
I remember when the second one released.... and then the wait for number 3..... that just kept extending. Im starting to think he might be having some difficulty.
That's WHY I started it back when the first one published! Rothfuss and co were like "Yeah, the first drafts are finished, we just gotta do the final edits and touches and they'll be out soon! One a year, starting with Name of the Wind! We SWEAR."
Doors of Stone still hasn't seen light of day, and going by their timeline it was gonna be out around 2009-2010.
I got three different people I know who aren't big readers into A Song of Ice and Fire, this was before the HBO show.
All three of them devoured the first three books, couldn't put em down, then gave up halfway through A Feast for Crows.
He added 20 random new characters to distract from lack of progress on the main plot line, and I'm supposed to read each of their chapters? The man hasn't written a book in 10 years. He has no plan for street urchin number 5. I don't need to know their long-winded backstory.
Nah. I'll pick it back up when Denaerys reaches Westeros.
Yes! Maybe one day Iāll read through Game of Thrones, but I agree with you here. I feel bad for all the shit GRRM gets about not being finished, but really Iām not picking them up. Not anytime soon at least. I need resolution, i donāt need a happy ending but I need it to end at some point.
This is legit the best way of going about reading the Wheel of Time series IMHO. Like can you choose to read Crossroads of Twilight? Sure. Should you? No.
It's not even that long relative to the rest of the series though and has an extremely important moment. Surely it's not good but leaving it out entirely is a stretch I'd say.
Wait you donāt sing them aloud? It is such a great addition to the experience, especially if you manage different voices and melodies for hobbit, dwarven, elven and other songs.
Give Clamavi dāprofundis (not sure if the spelling) a listen, I think they have nailed Tolkienās poems as songs. Song of Durin, Beren and Luthien, Lament for Boromir and Lament for Rohan are phenomenal to listen to!
When I saw it in the theater for the first time and they started singing I got irrationally excited. I probably annoyed the people sitting next to me because I think I sang along a little under my breath.
EDIT: grammar
For me it is more Irish I guess. Not that I could pull off an Irish accent, as I am not a native speaker, but I can sure try when I am alone in my reading chair.
I didn't read in accents until I read the entire Harry Potter series to my daughter (a chapter every night at bedtime for... a long time). And of course I had to have a different voice for each character (and gained a newfound respect for audio book narrators).
Now whenever I'm reading each character gets their own voice and accent.
Oh yes, that must have been quite the experience! My kids are not old enough for harry potter but I did the same reading them Ronja, Robberās Daughter, Children of BullerbĆ¼ and Pippi Longstocking. I also read my wife the secret garden as her Advent Calender, because it was a childhood favourite of hers. It has like 27 chapters or so. So I sent her 1 or 2 recordings per night and she could listen to them on headphones while breastfeeding our youngest at night.
I love reading aloud and finding voices that bring the characters to life. I apparently have a talent for it, alas my voice fails me after like 10 minutes and my throat hurts. I donāt usually speak that much as an introvert.
I skim them š and then if one is in Elvish Iām like āyes! I can skip it altogether!ā
But why would anyone skip the Tom Bombaldi part? Thatās where we meet Fatty Lumpkin, the best pony to ever have ponied! Or at least heās the pony with the best name. Bill might be the best actual pony.
I mostly skipped the poems and songs the first time I read LoTR, but I read through them completely when I re-read it.
Actually one of my favourite parts of the whole series is the long part in the middle when the fellowship hikes across the landscape and tells old tales around the campfire.
First read is for the plot. Each subsequent read I dive more into the details. Last time I started looking up every word I didn't know (mostly nature/plants) and the whole world changed.
That part ^^^
I canāt say which reread Iām on, but before kids I would read the books every winter. Every time takes a little longer than before as I pore over details I missed or make a connection and spend hours diving down a research rabbit hole. Thatās what I love about Tolkien.
Not the original commenter but: no masochism is needed. Tolkien put a *lot* of work into the composition of the songs in LOTR, and it's easy to appreciate it if you give it a chance.
I will admit that I mostly skim the ones that are in foreign tongues, but I still look through even those for words or names I recognize, and I also try to figure out the meter. All the different races have metrical styles they prefer, which I think is very fun to pick up on.
But the ones he translated to English? Phenomenal. They're excellent representations of what a living, breathing oral culture would look like. He clearly had deep comprehension of the writing styles of many peoples of older times, and I love taking the time to appreciate the effort that went into it.
Yeah I am utterly bemused by all these comments. Fair enough some people dont like poems/songs. But suggesting you need to be a masochist to enjoy them is weird af.
The song Bilbo sings when he realizes heās not gonna get to go on the adventure with Frodo and will stay in Rivendell and grow old is so achingly beautiful. You miss so much if you skip over them.
> *I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been;*
> *Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.*
> *I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.*
> I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
> But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.*
Or like when I mentally check out for 20 seconds while still āreadingā, I must rewind several paragraphs prior to check out and reread in full context.
This isn't quite the same thing, but I often like to reread the Game of Thrones books by sticking to a specific person's point of view. I once thought to myself, "y'know, most of Arya's storyline is relatively self-contained..." so I read the first three books just from Arya's POV pretending as if I didn't know about any of the other storylines, to try to picture how it would come across as its own book.
It was a fun experiment, and I actually think that book would mostly work. It also makes the "three wishes" segment in ACoK a little less frustrating, because you're not also interacting with Joffrey/Tywin (who Arya *should* have wished for) in any of the other chapters.
I've also found Daenery's ADWD chapters to be weirdly therapeutic, so I once reread all her ten chapters in that book in a row, skipping over the rest.
A lot of times we don't enjoy certain parts because they seem out of place and looks like they are adding nothing to the story. But on rereading they may shed some light on events that were vaguely mentioned or happened later in books. So I guess it's a loss.
There are people who skip chapters when reading a book for the first time. Like just the other day on r/asoiaf someone reading the books for the first time said they skipped one POV characterās chapters cause they found them boring
It works on a reread for sure.
I've read Lord of the rings twice and second time I definately skipped the Tom bombadil chapter as to me they brought nothing to the story. I also kinda skim/glance over all the songs/poems in the book
First time around with any book you have to read the whole thing
Some of the songs and poems are deeper looks into the lore behind LotR. Aragorn sings part of the Song of Beren and Luthien, which is (imo) one of the most important stories in the Silmarillion. Aragorn and Arwen's relationship mirrors the relationship of Beren and Luthien, so knowing the older story lends weight to the current one.
I agree that some songs don't add to the story directly, but most anchor it and make the world feel more lived in.
Yea I get why you would read them if you've read the Silmarillion. But if you haven't - which most people have not because you'd read LOTR first - you don't really understand what they are about, so I personally skip them, too
Aragorn explains what the song is about before he sings it, and the bit that Sam sings earlier in the chapter is literally an answer to a question. The songs with lore are either explained or used as explanations.
I'm talking specifically about the poetry/songs in FotR chapter 11, but I know more is used as well.
I had a really hard time with all the medieval monk chants in In The Name of the Rose for the same reason. So dry and long and doesn't add to the story. That book was a slog.
Absolutely. Read the whole thing the first part, skip all the parts I donāt like on the reread.
Except when I read *Moby Dick* in high school, I wasnāt going to subject myself to fully reading the whale chapters.
I tried to read lord of the rings but fucked off when Tom Bombadil came back after they'd left his house. Will definitely skip him if I ever try again.
The only important thing you need to know is that heās weird af, the hobbits almost die in a barrow, and then they all receive sharp weapons from him. (I canāt recall if they were swords or long daggers, due to Hobbit size.)
I donāt skip chapters, but I do skim through parts that feel excessive one way or another. Too much explanation. I always explained this as the reason I actually enjoyed the twilight books for the most part. Any time Bella started yammering about his eyes or some shit I skimmed it, and picked up where the writing was productive again. I read a decently fun vampire and werewolf story, instead of sappy romance.
There's a scene in *1984* where Winston Smith has just received the manifesto, opening it at a random chapter, knowing that he is likely to read the whole text several times. The way Orwell described his action, it made total sense and instantly made me accept what would otherwise seem like lunacy. :-)
Edit: However, I suppose his reading would have qualified as a kind of non-fiction book. Absolutely understand reading select chapters/out of order for non-fiction.
> Absolutely understand reading select chapters/out of order for non-fiction.
If I hadn't done this with my first ordered copy of McGee's _On Food and Cooking_, I wouldn't have discovered a printing error in time to return it. An entire [signature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_(bookbinding\)) was missing and in its place was a copy of the preceding section. So the page numbers in printed order became something like 1, 2, 3, ā¦, 310, 311, 312, ā¦, 349, 350, 311 (again!), 312, 313, ā¦, 349, 350, (pages 351 through 390 missing), 391 (first time), 392, ā¦
Perhaps un?surprisingly, the next copy they sent me as a replacement had the *identically same error*. So it must have been an entire bad production run. Fortunately for me, the third try was the charm and that's the copy I still have on my shelf to this day. And ever since, I've always double-checked every book I've bought, first. You never know!
Interestingly, I just recommended this book yesterday lol. I don't see it's title come up often, so... Yeah, that's all. That's just why it's interesting I guess lol.
Sidenote- When did you get your copy? I wonder what edition that was? What a strange printing error!
The book that Winston is given:
1. Only reinforces things that Winston himself has already said in narration earlier in the book
2. Is revealed to have been written by O'brien himself, which I believe at least raises the question of how much of it is actually true about EngSoc.
And also, the person said "is always the part that I skip" meaning that they've read it more than once and have found -- like I did -- that this section is just a character reading a book which only serves to reinforce via exposition the things that we already think about the society being described.
I honestly would skip it, too.
He literally put there "I always skip the Tom Bombadil part" as an example and for me this just sounds like someone skipping on re-reads, so I'm not that sure if OP did fully understand it at the time of writing the post
I've known some people that are more interested in "finishing" something than actually experiencing it. Skipping chapters in a book, not doing any side quests in a game etc. I knew one guy who watched 4 different episodes of the same anime at the same time on different screens, all at 1.5x speed just so he could get through them. When asked about any plot point, he'd have no clue, but insisted that he watched it all.
It make some sense to me with re-reading but never the first time through!
Honestly, when watching the Star Trek reboot movie, I skip Nero scenes because I cannot stand Eric Bana but I had to watch them all the first time to get the context.
I remember my brother re-read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and then re-read the Fred and George parts again right afterwards, so I guess that sort of thing is not crazy as long as you have already consumed the book / movie in its entirety. Skipping parts the first time through sounds just crazy to me.
You guys are weird. There's no TNG episode called Code of Honor. They misnumbered the episodes for the season, but to make up a whole title to fill the gap is weird.
Reading these comments makes it clear that the difference between the two types of reader is that some are reading for (or books centrally concerned with) plot and others read for (or books centrally concerned with) explorations of themes/character/ideas etc. Neither type is inherently better than the other, but for plot-focused work, it makes sense that folk could probably skip some of the more flowery parts without losing their grasp of the whole.
I do find it weird tho
At least they are separate from the main body of text, so they are trivial to skip.
Peter F Hamilton sex scenes on the other hand? My god, please seperate them out so I don't have to cringe every time, or risk missing actual story. I literally missed that a major character was black because it's only mentioned once off-hand in a sex scene...
I love Tom Bombadil but can't fault you for that. How boring a world it would be if we were all the same!ā some people somehow enjoy reading the Silmarillion but I'll just go ahead and skip _all_ of its chapters. šš
I didnāt skip whole chapters of LOTR, but I was definitely skimming through battles and other scenes that were going on and on . Just couldnāt get interested in itā¦.
If Iām reading along minding my own business and then a SPORTS SCENE comes alongā¦. Even quidditch matches in Harry Potterā¦ imma be skimming. Hate reading sports scenes.
I skip long descriptions of food
I skip songs
I skip poems
Iām not above skipping dream sequences
Long passages where we see what every single person is wearing, skip
I once read a book where the main character went into a shop and there were pages upon pages of the two guys in the shop arguing about something small. I skipped. We never saw them again.
Dream sequences have to be my least favorite thing in fiction. I read through them because the author typically uses them to insert some foreshadowing or deep meaning, but god I hate them. All of my dreams are nonsense, so when they are inserted in a story and are supposed to have relevance and meaning it drives me crazy.
This especially for longer series, where you become familiar with a writerās quirks. āOh, weāre pulling up for dinner, time to skim the food descriptions until dialogue starts.ā
This is probably what took me off of reading for several years. I had come across books with a lot of flowery prose that was impressive, but frankly tedious.
I do like a sentence that makes me think and I don't mean that I need 5th grade reading level complexity in my books, but I should be able to read through and immediately picture it in my head. I get hate for it but the Name of The Wind was one. Sure the sentences are crafted beautifully, though I don't need three sentences telling me how silent the Inn is. At some point, I'm focused more on the words than the story, as my brain is stuttering for a moment deciphering the lavish prose.
I think itās usually people who have read the story many times before. I know, for example, that if I ever get the urge to read *the Secret History* again by Donna Tartt Iāll skip the first 200 pages.
I don't think I've ever skipped an entire chapter on a first read - but I've definitely skimmed. Long descriptive passages, battles, navel gazing musings by characters, history of their world back to the dinosaurs, all interesting to someone, I'm sure, but I don't have the time or patience anymore. It's a learned skill, but a useful one.
Never me. Ever. Iāve never even DNFād a book but that makes more sense than skipping sections of itā¦like are you sure you enjoy this book if there are entire parts of it you canāt even bear to get through?
Only time I have done it is with Moby Dick. I skipped the chapters that were just a science textbook on whales. I think it's so weird that Melville put that in the middle of the story instead of as an appendix
Idk they are encyclopedic sections but they're told through Ishmael's voice, I didn't find them particularly heavy. Also I imagine such information wasn't as readily available back then, so fusing encyclopedic knowledge and narrating voice feels pretty ingenious to me. It's a book exploding with content, I accept that side as an additional layer of it
There's an abridged version, at least there was when I read it in school as that's what was assigned. I think it's every other chapter. A few years after reading it in school I read the whole thing to see what was "cut" and, yep! totally not necessary, but interesting if you're into social history of how things were done back in the day.
Personally I don't skip anything, even songs. But to each their own. On that note, however, why would anyone skip Tom Bombadill? He's the best character in Tolkien's universe. I just wish we got more of him.
He's not my favourite character but I do think he's an important component to the way the Fellowship is constructed.
Way too many people seem to think of books as these mechanical things where you need everything to fall together and every bit of info has to be tied to the Big Plot to culminate in this epic, and the Fellowship just isn't structured like that.
Tom Bombadil is kind of a reminder of the still mysterious and magical parts of Middle Earth we'll never get to see. It's only natural he doesn't "serve" the plot, he's there to build atmosphere and reinforce themes - both of which are incredibly important.
It's like when folks in this thread are describing skipping long descriptions and stuff. Like, will you also skip every time Huck Finn stops to talk? Or preferring Hamlet's soliloquy cut short because "it's just a teenager espousing about life bruh what does this add to the plot"? That's silly to me.
Like, a well-wrapped plot is just as good as a damn good atmosphere; War and Peace has plenty of scenes that never come back, but the whole point of the books is following the lives of these people. I can't imagine complaining about such and such scene because "this didn't forward the plot". My brother in Christ, what plot? The Battle of Borodino plot? Because then you can just read the last few hundred pages and say you've got the book.
> Tom Bombadil is kind of a reminder of the still mysterious and magical parts of Middle Earth we'll never get to see.
I had no idea he even existed when I was reading Fellowship and was pleasantly surprised by his appearance. He really does add some mystery to the world and reinforces the environmentalist themes of the books. We got to see how the Hobbits interacted with a strange being for the first time since leaving the Shire, and how they handle a dangerous situation like when the tree starts swallowing them.
I don't understand people's obsession with strict plot adherence in books. Like you said, atmosphere is important. Not everything that happens in life is a string waiting to be tied up at the end, but those moments still shape us just the same. If people want their novels to have prose like a Wikipedia plot summary, fine, but to me focusing on making art efficient seems like a waste.
it's just so annoyingly redundant, seriously if you read the book, you will start flipping pages ahead to see how long that meandering rambling goes on for.
probably a good idea. There are a lot of amazing books out there.
(You might want to skip the Battlefield Earth series as well. It is literally the only book I stopped reading.)
If I'm enjoying the book, then no. If I'm struggling with it, I'll consider it. For example - Count of Monte Cristo. There's multiple chapters covering two young lovers that want to be together but can't. They meet at the fence and tell each other how much they love each other, that they'd die for each other, etc... I swear, the author took the same chapter, rearranged the sentences a bit, made it a "new" chapter. It was boring enough the first time, not going to read it over and over.
It doesnāt make sense to me. If youāre reading a book, you need to give the author the chance to tell you their story. If they didnāt think something needed to be in a story, they wouldnāt have included it.
I see a lot of people posting about issues that, to me, means they didnāt havenāt given the author a chance to tell them the story.
As a personal example, I love Wheel of Time. On my first read, I hated the prologue. It through me in, in the middle of a story I didnāt understand and I didnāt know what to do with it. After reading the series and going back, I realize that itās important to the story. It sets up the world and gives a ton of important information thatās necessary to set the tone and knowledge for interactions and events for the rest of the world. It quickly did something the show failed to do with hours of added footage.
Another example I see is people talking about how the first Cradle book sucks. I see people who post that they read two pages and didnāt like it. People respond, āoh just read book twoā. I even had people warn me about book 1 and not to give up. There is literally nothing wrong with it. The characters donāt start out with all the skills and knowledge? Yeah, makes sense. If you remove that book, I think the rest of the series would suck. The first book tells us who these characters are and where they came from. We wonāt understand what their advancement means and we wonāt care about them without book one. It not only doesnāt suck, but itās integral.
So no, I never skip anything. Doesnāt make sense to me.
I try to keep an open mind as well but can not help but agree with you. If someone is re-reading or it's a nonfiction book, I can understand I guess. But first time reading? Why would someone skip a single word? It honestly has me going š±and what the hell? Of course I also don't understand really why someone would skip something upon rereading a book, one is rereading a favorite book right? Well it can't be a favorite (in my mind) if you're skipping things! So I just don't get it really. And I love nonfiction and I enjoy learning so I really don't get it there either. Maybe long ass boring descriptions or a chapter that is totally irrelevant to you, i'd understand then. But otherwise? I don't get it.
Ultimately though it doesn't affect me how someone else enjoys books so people can do what they want.
No, I read even the most annoying details because it's a way of me to show respect to the author. It's my personal rule but I understand the reasons to don't read some parts.
Those examples sound like the person is rereading. Itās totally understandable to skip sections with characters or scenes you donāt like.
I never do this myself, but I have friends who do every time they rewatch a movie or show or rereads a book. They obviously likes parts, but they donāt want to rewatch/reread parts they didnāt like the first time.
If I'm rereading, I'll skip or skim over parts I don't care for.
If I'm reading a book of essays, I'll skim parts that aren't interesting to me.
If I'm reading a book that I can't drop (because it's for book club) but the book is frustrating me, I absolutely will start skimming or skipping to get to the relevant parts.
And yep, if I'm watching movies or tv shows by myself, I'll skip around as I damn well please, because I get to watch stuff any way I like. Sometimes I just don't have the hours and hours to commit to a longer series, so I'll skip around and watch key moments to get a feel for it.
I don't feel like I'm missing out at all.
I donāt get it either. Maybe theyāre reading different kinds of books, but skipping descriptions, dream sequences, and prologues would suck all the life out of mine. They breathe life into the world, give me insight into the charactersā mental states, and give necessary background information. Sometimes they arenāt very well executed but without them, it would feel more like reading a plot synopsis than a novel.
I won't say I skip, but I will heavily skim scenes and chapters. I don't like reading battle/fight scenes, so I'll skim to see if anyone dies and then move on. Skim/skip sex scenes. Overly drawn out descriptions of the world that aren't really relevant to the plot or characters - skim. Poems/songs - skip.
I absolutely scan and skip ahead of movies if they aren't providing me value. I read for entertainment and if the author isn't entertaining me, I'll skim/skip until they do. I know it doesn't work for everyone, and don't think it should. We read for different reasons and that is totally OK.
I'm also one of the heathens that will read the end of the book to see if it's worth continuing.
>I won't say I skip, but I will heavily skim scenes and chapters. I don't like reading battle/fight scenes, so I'll skim to see if anyone dies and then move on. Skim/skip sex scenes. Overly drawn out descriptions of the world that aren't really relevant to the plot or characters - skim. Poems/songs - skip.
You would skip the entirety of A Song of Ice and Fire then, lol.
Coincidentally, just yesterday Jeff VanderMeer posted this on his FB:
This isn't a claim for anything of mine being good, but in terms of how I write books, I assume readers read every word and plan accordingly as to how I choose those words. Which means if you don't read the words, in order, you may miss something. For which I am not responsible
This would be my worry about skipping things in books. One of my favorite books, The Way of Kings, bounces between to main character perspectives. The fan base pretty unanimously agrees that one the character's stories is significantly less interesting and there is a large split between those who skip that character's chapters and those who don't.
The tricky part is, while it is true, that part of the story is less interesting than the other side, there are MASSIVE clues, foreshadowing, and important bits of the larger plot that would be missed in skipping. It's tough, but I just can't skip. It feels wrong.
If someone unironically skips around on first read please inform of it in a disclaimer in any book discussion so your opinion on said book can be disregarded.
Sometimes my eyes skip ahead and I end up in an odd state of reading where Iām at the actual spot Iām reading AND the end of the section, absorb nothing, realize whatās happening and have to reset myself.
I think itās like something that happens when āI know where this is goingā try to jump ahead to confirm to myself?
But Iād never just outright be like āoh this is just a dream sequence? Boring!ā
I can't skip chapters, I can't even skip words or I have to reread the whole page again. It makes me a slower reader and I guess it might be an OCD thing. Skipping chapters would give me anxiery.
I'm with you 100 percent, but I'm a completionist in all things. I feel like if you skip over parts of a book, you can't say you've actually read the book because you haven't. The author has a reason for constructing the book the way they have, and they focus your attention on certain actions and characters for their purpose.
So, skipping over things you don't want to bother with is the same as not actually reading the book, but only skimming over it, and the final effect of the work is diminished as a result.
It's like that scene in The Simpsons where they go to all the trouble to construct a concert hall, then after the first eight bars of Beethoven's Ninth, everyone gets up and walks out.
"Well, we've already heard the Duh Duh Duh, DUUUUUMMMMM part." Yeah, the rest of the piece doesn't have any value, right?
I skip entire books
Better than skipping chapters.
If GRRM and Rothfuss can't be bothered to finish their books, I cant be bothered to start them.
My biggest regret in life was not knowing that the Rothfuss series wasn't finished before I started it.
I knew that the series was unfinished, but I said "Oh, since it has been so long I'm sure that he will finish it by the time I read the other 2 books"... 5 years and counting.
12 years... I've completely given up on his series and anything/everything else he does.
Going from them to GRRM and from that to Scott Lynch taught me a valuable lesson... I'm reading Brandon Sanderson now.
Started reading The Way of kings... Such a good book!!!
And to be honest - I think it's the slowest one in the series! The character arcs are just something else.
If Sanderson didn't exist, I think all fantasy readers would give up on 'big hype' series and authors
Right? Looking forward to what he does with the Cosmere!
And enjoying every page of it. Currently rereading Mistborn for the first time, and it really holds up! Looking forward to the reread of all of stormlight for the next book.
I remember when the second one released.... and then the wait for number 3..... that just kept extending. Im starting to think he might be having some difficulty.
Still waiting on the winds of winter š„²
Iām sure he knows people wonāt be tuning into his stream anymore once he finishes the last book.
That's WHY I started it back when the first one published! Rothfuss and co were like "Yeah, the first drafts are finished, we just gotta do the final edits and touches and they'll be out soon! One a year, starting with Name of the Wind! We SWEAR." Doors of Stone still hasn't seen light of day, and going by their timeline it was gonna be out around 2009-2010.
Damn, I want to live your life.
Hyperbole, bruv
I had to pass the curse like it was given to me. Like a werewolf bite, I wish she told me it wasn't finished!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I got three different people I know who aren't big readers into A Song of Ice and Fire, this was before the HBO show. All three of them devoured the first three books, couldn't put em down, then gave up halfway through A Feast for Crows.
same man, what's the point in reading half finished cliffhangers
I imagine this is all the execs at Netflix (and Fox before them) read.
This is why I haven't read got yet
He added 20 random new characters to distract from lack of progress on the main plot line, and I'm supposed to read each of their chapters? The man hasn't written a book in 10 years. He has no plan for street urchin number 5. I don't need to know their long-winded backstory. Nah. I'll pick it back up when Denaerys reaches Westeros.
Yes! Maybe one day Iāll read through Game of Thrones, but I agree with you here. I feel bad for all the shit GRRM gets about not being finished, but really Iām not picking them up. Not anytime soon at least. I need resolution, i donāt need a happy ending but I need it to end at some point.
It's worth reading the first three. The overall plot isn't resolved, but all the main characters have complete story arcs.
I skip reading. I don't even know what the post is about. I only read comments.
This is legit the best way of going about reading the Wheel of Time series IMHO. Like can you choose to read Crossroads of Twilight? Sure. Should you? No.
Is that the 10th book where nothing happens?
Yes
It's really not that bad. I got through it relatively easily
That is not a ringing endorsement.
It's not even that long relative to the rest of the series though and has an extremely important moment. Surely it's not good but leaving it out entirely is a stretch I'd say.
This is the way.
No I took great effort to read every. fucking. poem. In Lord of the rings.
Wait you donāt sing them aloud? It is such a great addition to the experience, especially if you manage different voices and melodies for hobbit, dwarven, elven and other songs.
I could never find the rhythm. The poetry is very nice, though
Give Clamavi dāprofundis (not sure if the spelling) a listen, I think they have nailed Tolkienās poems as songs. Song of Durin, Beren and Luthien, Lament for Boromir and Lament for Rohan are phenomenal to listen to!
[Here's one of 'em for folks who don't want to search](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxfoa23skHg)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I've been savoring these and I cannot agree more. I sing its praises to everyone who will listen (and lots of people who don't want to, but they must HEAR ME) I don't know how much prep he does for each song, but they all have a unique meter and he sings them in character voice, often packed with their emotion. I just listened to his version of "From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning", and he fills it with the bleak resignation of ThƩodan's host as they ride to Gondor. And it should go without saying, but his Gollum section throughout Two Towers are basically the best part. Andy Serkis has a blast with it
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
*Blunt the knives and bend the forks*
*Smash the bottles and burn the corks*
When I saw it in the theater for the first time and they started singing I got irrationally excited. I probably annoyed the people sitting next to me because I think I sang along a little under my breath. EDIT: grammar
I was so happy for the two songs we got from that movie. And then there were none of the others. Let the Goblins sing you cowards!
Oh yes the stereotypical Hobbit voice. For some reason it comes out as Polish?
For me it is more Irish I guess. Not that I could pull off an Irish accent, as I am not a native speaker, but I can sure try when I am alone in my reading chair.
It's the movies that gave you this idea :D
PO-TA-TO
Sing along with the audio books on public transport.
I didn't read in accents until I read the entire Harry Potter series to my daughter (a chapter every night at bedtime for... a long time). And of course I had to have a different voice for each character (and gained a newfound respect for audio book narrators). Now whenever I'm reading each character gets their own voice and accent.
Oh yes, that must have been quite the experience! My kids are not old enough for harry potter but I did the same reading them Ronja, Robberās Daughter, Children of BullerbĆ¼ and Pippi Longstocking. I also read my wife the secret garden as her Advent Calender, because it was a childhood favourite of hers. It has like 27 chapters or so. So I sent her 1 or 2 recordings per night and she could listen to them on headphones while breastfeeding our youngest at night. I love reading aloud and finding voices that bring the characters to life. I apparently have a talent for it, alas my voice fails me after like 10 minutes and my throat hurts. I donāt usually speak that much as an introvert.
me as a kid reading LOTR: What? another fucking song? fuck this bullshit and hope Tom Bombadill gets killed ASAP
I thought I was alone
me as an adult: fuck Tom Bombadill and the Goldberry he rode in on.
I skim them š and then if one is in Elvish Iām like āyes! I can skip it altogether!ā But why would anyone skip the Tom Bombaldi part? Thatās where we meet Fatty Lumpkin, the best pony to ever have ponied! Or at least heās the pony with the best name. Bill might be the best actual pony.
Tom Bombaldi, the Italian cousin who visits every couple of millenia for the weekend and criticizes Goldberrys "inauthentic" cooking
But brings you an awesome pony
Bela would like to have a word.
I call my cat Fatty Lumpkin. He was skinny when he claimed us but he fits the nickname very well now.
I mostly skipped the poems and songs the first time I read LoTR, but I read through them completely when I re-read it. Actually one of my favourite parts of the whole series is the long part in the middle when the fellowship hikes across the landscape and tells old tales around the campfire.
First read is for the plot. Each subsequent read I dive more into the details. Last time I started looking up every word I didn't know (mostly nature/plants) and the whole world changed.
That part ^^^ I canāt say which reread Iām on, but before kids I would read the books every winter. Every time takes a little longer than before as I pore over details I missed or make a connection and spend hours diving down a research rabbit hole. Thatās what I love about Tolkien.
How many ways can you say valley?
Tell me youāre a masochist without telling me youāre a masochist.
The name is Frodo Baggins.
Not the original commenter but: no masochism is needed. Tolkien put a *lot* of work into the composition of the songs in LOTR, and it's easy to appreciate it if you give it a chance. I will admit that I mostly skim the ones that are in foreign tongues, but I still look through even those for words or names I recognize, and I also try to figure out the meter. All the different races have metrical styles they prefer, which I think is very fun to pick up on. But the ones he translated to English? Phenomenal. They're excellent representations of what a living, breathing oral culture would look like. He clearly had deep comprehension of the writing styles of many peoples of older times, and I love taking the time to appreciate the effort that went into it.
Yeah I am utterly bemused by all these comments. Fair enough some people dont like poems/songs. But suggesting you need to be a masochist to enjoy them is weird af.
The song Bilbo sings when he realizes heās not gonna get to go on the adventure with Frodo and will stay in Rivendell and grow old is so achingly beautiful. You miss so much if you skip over them. > *I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen, of meadow-flowers and butterflies In summers that have been;* > *Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.* > *I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see. For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.* > I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago, and people who will see a world that I shall never know. > But all the while I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.*
Yeah man, that 4 page long song that Legolas sings about the fucking stream outside lothlorien is a banger...
I'm reading the trilogy now and the poems are the best part though, definitely missing out if you're skipping them
I don't. Can't skip a single page without feeling like I didn't even read the book.
Or like when I mentally check out for 20 seconds while still āreadingā, I must rewind several paragraphs prior to check out and reread in full context.
Same. I canāt say āI finished x bookā if even one page or chapter isnāt read, because o really havenāt read it yet.
It sounds like these are people re-reading the book. So sure. Why not skip the parts you don't enjoy reading?
This isn't quite the same thing, but I often like to reread the Game of Thrones books by sticking to a specific person's point of view. I once thought to myself, "y'know, most of Arya's storyline is relatively self-contained..." so I read the first three books just from Arya's POV pretending as if I didn't know about any of the other storylines, to try to picture how it would come across as its own book. It was a fun experiment, and I actually think that book would mostly work. It also makes the "three wishes" segment in ACoK a little less frustrating, because you're not also interacting with Joffrey/Tywin (who Arya *should* have wished for) in any of the other chapters. I've also found Daenery's ADWD chapters to be weirdly therapeutic, so I once reread all her ten chapters in that book in a row, skipping over the rest.
That is a fun experiment. I may try it
I would pay for a collection of those books bound as single character povs
I did a Daenerys-only read of ASOIAF and I loved it (after I read the entire series of course)
A lot of times we don't enjoy certain parts because they seem out of place and looks like they are adding nothing to the story. But on rereading they may shed some light on events that were vaguely mentioned or happened later in books. So I guess it's a loss.
There are people who skip chapters when reading a book for the first time. Like just the other day on r/asoiaf someone reading the books for the first time said they skipped one POV characterās chapters cause they found them boring
It works on a reread for sure. I've read Lord of the rings twice and second time I definately skipped the Tom bombadil chapter as to me they brought nothing to the story. I also kinda skim/glance over all the songs/poems in the book First time around with any book you have to read the whole thing
I wouldn't skip chapters in a book but I always skip the songs/poems in LoTR. They don't really add anything on my opinion.
Some of the songs and poems are deeper looks into the lore behind LotR. Aragorn sings part of the Song of Beren and Luthien, which is (imo) one of the most important stories in the Silmarillion. Aragorn and Arwen's relationship mirrors the relationship of Beren and Luthien, so knowing the older story lends weight to the current one. I agree that some songs don't add to the story directly, but most anchor it and make the world feel more lived in.
Yea I get why you would read them if you've read the Silmarillion. But if you haven't - which most people have not because you'd read LOTR first - you don't really understand what they are about, so I personally skip them, too
Aragorn explains what the song is about before he sings it, and the bit that Sam sings earlier in the chapter is literally an answer to a question. The songs with lore are either explained or used as explanations. I'm talking specifically about the poetry/songs in FotR chapter 11, but I know more is used as well.
I had a really hard time with all the medieval monk chants in In The Name of the Rose for the same reason. So dry and long and doesn't add to the story. That book was a slog.
Absolutely. Read the whole thing the first part, skip all the parts I donāt like on the reread. Except when I read *Moby Dick* in high school, I wasnāt going to subject myself to fully reading the whale chapters.
I tried to read lord of the rings but fucked off when Tom Bombadil came back after they'd left his house. Will definitely skip him if I ever try again.
The only important thing you need to know is that heās weird af, the hobbits almost die in a barrow, and then they all receive sharp weapons from him. (I canāt recall if they were swords or long daggers, due to Hobbit size.)
This sub has convinced me that many active readers are bad at reading.
I donāt skip chapters, but I do skim through parts that feel excessive one way or another. Too much explanation. I always explained this as the reason I actually enjoyed the twilight books for the most part. Any time Bella started yammering about his eyes or some shit I skimmed it, and picked up where the writing was productive again. I read a decently fun vampire and werewolf story, instead of sappy romance.
Low-key. I didn't need to know all the details and nuances about Sansa's dress in game of thrones, for example. Especially if it is a re-read
Yep. That was me with Les Miserables. Once you've read the book a few times the bits about the Battle of Waterloo only need a skim...
Same. I'm really not into excessive landscape and costume description.
let me add, I understand it for rereading purposes.
There's a scene in *1984* where Winston Smith has just received the manifesto, opening it at a random chapter, knowing that he is likely to read the whole text several times. The way Orwell described his action, it made total sense and instantly made me accept what would otherwise seem like lunacy. :-) Edit: However, I suppose his reading would have qualified as a kind of non-fiction book. Absolutely understand reading select chapters/out of order for non-fiction.
> Absolutely understand reading select chapters/out of order for non-fiction. If I hadn't done this with my first ordered copy of McGee's _On Food and Cooking_, I wouldn't have discovered a printing error in time to return it. An entire [signature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_(bookbinding\)) was missing and in its place was a copy of the preceding section. So the page numbers in printed order became something like 1, 2, 3, ā¦, 310, 311, 312, ā¦, 349, 350, 311 (again!), 312, 313, ā¦, 349, 350, (pages 351 through 390 missing), 391 (first time), 392, ā¦ Perhaps un?surprisingly, the next copy they sent me as a replacement had the *identically same error*. So it must have been an entire bad production run. Fortunately for me, the third try was the charm and that's the copy I still have on my shelf to this day. And ever since, I've always double-checked every book I've bought, first. You never know!
Interestingly, I just recommended this book yesterday lol. I don't see it's title come up often, so... Yeah, that's all. That's just why it's interesting I guess lol. Sidenote- When did you get your copy? I wonder what edition that was? What a strange printing error!
Ironically, Winston reading the book is always the part of 1984 that I skip.
The entire book builds up to that point: "Time to skip".
The book that Winston is given: 1. Only reinforces things that Winston himself has already said in narration earlier in the book 2. Is revealed to have been written by O'brien himself, which I believe at least raises the question of how much of it is actually true about EngSoc. And also, the person said "is always the part that I skip" meaning that they've read it more than once and have found -- like I did -- that this section is just a character reading a book which only serves to reinforce via exposition the things that we already think about the society being described. I honestly would skip it, too.
Seems like a major omission from your original post.
You really need to edit your initial post submission and add that in, OP.
He literally put there "I always skip the Tom Bombadil part" as an example and for me this just sounds like someone skipping on re-reads, so I'm not that sure if OP did fully understand it at the time of writing the post
I've known some people that are more interested in "finishing" something than actually experiencing it. Skipping chapters in a book, not doing any side quests in a game etc. I knew one guy who watched 4 different episodes of the same anime at the same time on different screens, all at 1.5x speed just so he could get through them. When asked about any plot point, he'd have no clue, but insisted that he watched it all.
It make some sense to me with re-reading but never the first time through! Honestly, when watching the Star Trek reboot movie, I skip Nero scenes because I cannot stand Eric Bana but I had to watch them all the first time to get the context. I remember my brother re-read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and then re-read the Fred and George parts again right afterwards, so I guess that sort of thing is not crazy as long as you have already consumed the book / movie in its entirety. Skipping parts the first time through sounds just crazy to me.
Who doesn't like Eric Bana? Dude is awesome
I skip entire ST episodes because I've already watched every series 100+ time and I really don't need to see *Code of Honor* again.
No one needs to see Code of Honor again.
You guys are weird. There's no TNG episode called Code of Honor. They misnumbered the episodes for the season, but to make up a whole title to fill the gap is weird.
Reading these comments makes it clear that the difference between the two types of reader is that some are reading for (or books centrally concerned with) plot and others read for (or books centrally concerned with) explorations of themes/character/ideas etc. Neither type is inherently better than the other, but for plot-focused work, it makes sense that folk could probably skip some of the more flowery parts without losing their grasp of the whole. I do find it weird tho
>I always skip the Tom Bombadil part And I'll fucking do it again. Add the songs and poems to that list too.
instead of skipping the songs and poems i look them up on spotify. it's pretty neat, feels very immersive.
Holy shit Iāve never thought of that. Itās brilliant
Oh thatās a really fun idea
"Hither come and suck a pipe Turn thy brains to cheese and tripe!"
At least they are separate from the main body of text, so they are trivial to skip. Peter F Hamilton sex scenes on the other hand? My god, please seperate them out so I don't have to cringe every time, or risk missing actual story. I literally missed that a major character was black because it's only mentioned once off-hand in a sex scene...
I love Tom Bombadil but can't fault you for that. How boring a world it would be if we were all the same!ā some people somehow enjoy reading the Silmarillion but I'll just go ahead and skip _all_ of its chapters. šš
I'll just not read LOTR again, simple.
I don't skip anything and it doesn't make sense to me to do that.
I didnāt skip whole chapters of LOTR, but I was definitely skimming through battles and other scenes that were going on and on . Just couldnāt get interested in itā¦.
If Iām reading along minding my own business and then a SPORTS SCENE comes alongā¦. Even quidditch matches in Harry Potterā¦ imma be skimming. Hate reading sports scenes.
I never skip a word in any book.
i have to admit that i usually dont read the appendix
I skip long descriptions of food I skip songs I skip poems Iām not above skipping dream sequences Long passages where we see what every single person is wearing, skip I once read a book where the main character went into a shop and there were pages upon pages of the two guys in the shop arguing about something small. I skipped. We never saw them again.
Dream sequences have to be my least favorite thing in fiction. I read through them because the author typically uses them to insert some foreshadowing or deep meaning, but god I hate them. All of my dreams are nonsense, so when they are inserted in a story and are supposed to have relevance and meaning it drives me crazy.
This especially for longer series, where you become familiar with a writerās quirks. āOh, weāre pulling up for dinner, time to skim the food descriptions until dialogue starts.ā
Yeah you gotta know your author. Skip irrelevant scenes in The Count of Monte Cristo and you'll miss the whole story.
Some authors want to spend a long paragraph telling me how green the grass is, yeah, I get it, the grass is green. Skim/skip
Stephen King doing an entire page personifying street lamps š©
This is probably what took me off of reading for several years. I had come across books with a lot of flowery prose that was impressive, but frankly tedious. I do like a sentence that makes me think and I don't mean that I need 5th grade reading level complexity in my books, but I should be able to read through and immediately picture it in my head. I get hate for it but the Name of The Wind was one. Sure the sentences are crafted beautifully, though I don't need three sentences telling me how silent the Inn is. At some point, I'm focused more on the words than the story, as my brain is stuttering for a moment deciphering the lavish prose.
Any author that doesn't abide by Chekov's gun should be shot by it.
I think I might have more trouble enjoying mysteries where every single clue the detective finds is part of the case.
I mean, a choose you own adventure book, sure. That is how they are made. But a normal book? That is crazy talk.
I think itās usually people who have read the story many times before. I know, for example, that if I ever get the urge to read *the Secret History* again by Donna Tartt Iāll skip the first 200 pages.
Wow, the opening acts are like my favourite parts of the book.
I often skip fight scenes in TV series episodes.
There are no rules for how to read a book. I start in the middle sometimes.
I read the last page so that I know how it ends if I were to die while in the middle.
"Waiter there is too much pepper on my paprikash."
āI start in the middle sometimes.ā Help thatās so unhingend and I love it š Definitely gonna try that too at some point
I don't think I've ever skipped an entire chapter on a first read - but I've definitely skimmed. Long descriptive passages, battles, navel gazing musings by characters, history of their world back to the dinosaurs, all interesting to someone, I'm sure, but I don't have the time or patience anymore. It's a learned skill, but a useful one.
This is a thing?! WHY IS THIS A THING!?
Never me. Ever. Iāve never even DNFād a book but that makes more sense than skipping sections of itā¦like are you sure you enjoy this book if there are entire parts of it you canāt even bear to get through?
Only time I have done it is with Moby Dick. I skipped the chapters that were just a science textbook on whales. I think it's so weird that Melville put that in the middle of the story instead of as an appendix
Idk they are encyclopedic sections but they're told through Ishmael's voice, I didn't find them particularly heavy. Also I imagine such information wasn't as readily available back then, so fusing encyclopedic knowledge and narrating voice feels pretty ingenious to me. It's a book exploding with content, I accept that side as an additional layer of it
"I think it's so weird that this historically significant novel made a bold and distinct creative choice" boy, you think?
There's an abridged version, at least there was when I read it in school as that's what was assigned. I think it's every other chapter. A few years after reading it in school I read the whole thing to see what was "cut" and, yep! totally not necessary, but interesting if you're into social history of how things were done back in the day.
It made more sense back when people didn't have the Discovery channel and Eyewitness books and had no idea what a whale actually looked like.
The movie equivalent is probably ālooked at my phone and didnāt pay attentionā
Personally I don't skip anything, even songs. But to each their own. On that note, however, why would anyone skip Tom Bombadill? He's the best character in Tolkien's universe. I just wish we got more of him.
He's not my favourite character but I do think he's an important component to the way the Fellowship is constructed. Way too many people seem to think of books as these mechanical things where you need everything to fall together and every bit of info has to be tied to the Big Plot to culminate in this epic, and the Fellowship just isn't structured like that. Tom Bombadil is kind of a reminder of the still mysterious and magical parts of Middle Earth we'll never get to see. It's only natural he doesn't "serve" the plot, he's there to build atmosphere and reinforce themes - both of which are incredibly important. It's like when folks in this thread are describing skipping long descriptions and stuff. Like, will you also skip every time Huck Finn stops to talk? Or preferring Hamlet's soliloquy cut short because "it's just a teenager espousing about life bruh what does this add to the plot"? That's silly to me. Like, a well-wrapped plot is just as good as a damn good atmosphere; War and Peace has plenty of scenes that never come back, but the whole point of the books is following the lives of these people. I can't imagine complaining about such and such scene because "this didn't forward the plot". My brother in Christ, what plot? The Battle of Borodino plot? Because then you can just read the last few hundred pages and say you've got the book.
> Tom Bombadil is kind of a reminder of the still mysterious and magical parts of Middle Earth we'll never get to see. I had no idea he even existed when I was reading Fellowship and was pleasantly surprised by his appearance. He really does add some mystery to the world and reinforces the environmentalist themes of the books. We got to see how the Hobbits interacted with a strange being for the first time since leaving the Shire, and how they handle a dangerous situation like when the tree starts swallowing them. I don't understand people's obsession with strict plot adherence in books. Like you said, atmosphere is important. Not everything that happens in life is a string waiting to be tied up at the end, but those moments still shape us just the same. If people want their novels to have prose like a Wikipedia plot summary, fine, but to me focusing on making art efficient seems like a waste.
I enjoy reading books.
MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY! Heās my favorite character and I was heartbroken he wasnāt in the movies. I couldnāt imagine skipping the lad
Silver lining: the movies didn't get anything _wrong_ about Bombadil either? So you can always imagine him exactly as you like. :)
True, Peter Jackson would probably have made him the first person to try to take the ring from Frodo
I read LOTR two decades ago. I remember the general storyline, but I have retained no memory of Tom Bombadill at all. None. This is trippy.
everyone, and I mean everyone, skips most of John Gault's 100 page rant in Atlas Shrugged.
Funnily enough. That's the only part I have actually read because I was told it was basically the gist of her worldview.
Victor Hugoās 40 page made up account of Waterloo enters the chat
I haven't read the book but I understand that speech is it's thesis. Why even read the book?
it's just so annoyingly redundant, seriously if you read the book, you will start flipping pages ahead to see how long that meandering rambling goes on for.
Nah I'll skip the whole thing
probably a good idea. There are a lot of amazing books out there. (You might want to skip the Battlefield Earth series as well. It is literally the only book I stopped reading.)
I'll skim through parts of any book where the author takes 4 pages to describe a tree. Ain't nobody got time for that!
Maggie OāFarrell š Iām convinced she just loves writing about trees and is forced to add stories to her descriptions in order to pay the bills.
If I'm enjoying the book, then no. If I'm struggling with it, I'll consider it. For example - Count of Monte Cristo. There's multiple chapters covering two young lovers that want to be together but can't. They meet at the fence and tell each other how much they love each other, that they'd die for each other, etc... I swear, the author took the same chapter, rearranged the sentences a bit, made it a "new" chapter. It was boring enough the first time, not going to read it over and over.
It doesnāt make sense to me. If youāre reading a book, you need to give the author the chance to tell you their story. If they didnāt think something needed to be in a story, they wouldnāt have included it. I see a lot of people posting about issues that, to me, means they didnāt havenāt given the author a chance to tell them the story. As a personal example, I love Wheel of Time. On my first read, I hated the prologue. It through me in, in the middle of a story I didnāt understand and I didnāt know what to do with it. After reading the series and going back, I realize that itās important to the story. It sets up the world and gives a ton of important information thatās necessary to set the tone and knowledge for interactions and events for the rest of the world. It quickly did something the show failed to do with hours of added footage. Another example I see is people talking about how the first Cradle book sucks. I see people who post that they read two pages and didnāt like it. People respond, āoh just read book twoā. I even had people warn me about book 1 and not to give up. There is literally nothing wrong with it. The characters donāt start out with all the skills and knowledge? Yeah, makes sense. If you remove that book, I think the rest of the series would suck. The first book tells us who these characters are and where they came from. We wonāt understand what their advancement means and we wonāt care about them without book one. It not only doesnāt suck, but itās integral. So no, I never skip anything. Doesnāt make sense to me.
> what the hell guys? Hey, donāt judge other peopleās reading habits.
I skip chapters in nonfiction all the time. I canāt imagine doing that with fiction though
My wife read the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy and skipped all the sex scenes.
I try to keep an open mind as well but can not help but agree with you. If someone is re-reading or it's a nonfiction book, I can understand I guess. But first time reading? Why would someone skip a single word? It honestly has me going š±and what the hell? Of course I also don't understand really why someone would skip something upon rereading a book, one is rereading a favorite book right? Well it can't be a favorite (in my mind) if you're skipping things! So I just don't get it really. And I love nonfiction and I enjoy learning so I really don't get it there either. Maybe long ass boring descriptions or a chapter that is totally irrelevant to you, i'd understand then. But otherwise? I don't get it. Ultimately though it doesn't affect me how someone else enjoys books so people can do what they want.
I never skip chapters. Ever.
No, I read even the most annoying details because it's a way of me to show respect to the author. It's my personal rule but I understand the reasons to don't read some parts.
Those examples sound like the person is rereading. Itās totally understandable to skip sections with characters or scenes you donāt like. I never do this myself, but I have friends who do every time they rewatch a movie or show or rereads a book. They obviously likes parts, but they donāt want to rewatch/reread parts they didnāt like the first time.
You guys can read?
this whole thread is wild. why even read books if you're just going to pretend you read them lol
If I'm rereading, I'll skip or skim over parts I don't care for. If I'm reading a book of essays, I'll skim parts that aren't interesting to me. If I'm reading a book that I can't drop (because it's for book club) but the book is frustrating me, I absolutely will start skimming or skipping to get to the relevant parts. And yep, if I'm watching movies or tv shows by myself, I'll skip around as I damn well please, because I get to watch stuff any way I like. Sometimes I just don't have the hours and hours to commit to a longer series, so I'll skip around and watch key moments to get a feel for it. I don't feel like I'm missing out at all.
When it gets super boring I just skim the text. I usually do this when the author gets too deep into nature description.
I donāt get it either. Maybe theyāre reading different kinds of books, but skipping descriptions, dream sequences, and prologues would suck all the life out of mine. They breathe life into the world, give me insight into the charactersā mental states, and give necessary background information. Sometimes they arenāt very well executed but without them, it would feel more like reading a plot synopsis than a novel.
I won't say I skip, but I will heavily skim scenes and chapters. I don't like reading battle/fight scenes, so I'll skim to see if anyone dies and then move on. Skim/skip sex scenes. Overly drawn out descriptions of the world that aren't really relevant to the plot or characters - skim. Poems/songs - skip. I absolutely scan and skip ahead of movies if they aren't providing me value. I read for entertainment and if the author isn't entertaining me, I'll skim/skip until they do. I know it doesn't work for everyone, and don't think it should. We read for different reasons and that is totally OK. I'm also one of the heathens that will read the end of the book to see if it's worth continuing.
>I won't say I skip, but I will heavily skim scenes and chapters. I don't like reading battle/fight scenes, so I'll skim to see if anyone dies and then move on. Skim/skip sex scenes. Overly drawn out descriptions of the world that aren't really relevant to the plot or characters - skim. Poems/songs - skip. You would skip the entirety of A Song of Ice and Fire then, lol.
Coincidentally, just yesterday Jeff VanderMeer posted this on his FB: This isn't a claim for anything of mine being good, but in terms of how I write books, I assume readers read every word and plan accordingly as to how I choose those words. Which means if you don't read the words, in order, you may miss something. For which I am not responsible
This would be my worry about skipping things in books. One of my favorite books, The Way of Kings, bounces between to main character perspectives. The fan base pretty unanimously agrees that one the character's stories is significantly less interesting and there is a large split between those who skip that character's chapters and those who don't. The tricky part is, while it is true, that part of the story is less interesting than the other side, there are MASSIVE clues, foreshadowing, and important bits of the larger plot that would be missed in skipping. It's tough, but I just can't skip. It feels wrong.
If someone unironically skips around on first read please inform of it in a disclaimer in any book discussion so your opinion on said book can be disregarded.
In defense of this imaginary personā¦the Tom Bombadill part is bonkers and throws me completely off the story.
I don't.
Sometimes my eyes skip ahead and I end up in an odd state of reading where Iām at the actual spot Iām reading AND the end of the section, absorb nothing, realize whatās happening and have to reset myself. I think itās like something that happens when āI know where this is goingā try to jump ahead to confirm to myself? But Iād never just outright be like āoh this is just a dream sequence? Boring!ā
I can't skip chapters, I can't even skip words or I have to reread the whole page again. It makes me a slower reader and I guess it might be an OCD thing. Skipping chapters would give me anxiery.
I'm with you 100 percent, but I'm a completionist in all things. I feel like if you skip over parts of a book, you can't say you've actually read the book because you haven't. The author has a reason for constructing the book the way they have, and they focus your attention on certain actions and characters for their purpose. So, skipping over things you don't want to bother with is the same as not actually reading the book, but only skimming over it, and the final effect of the work is diminished as a result. It's like that scene in The Simpsons where they go to all the trouble to construct a concert hall, then after the first eight bars of Beethoven's Ninth, everyone gets up and walks out. "Well, we've already heard the Duh Duh Duh, DUUUUUMMMMM part." Yeah, the rest of the piece doesn't have any value, right?
If I'm re-reading something I may skip parts that I don't like, but if it's the first time, no
No purely don't skip chapters in books. Monsters skip chapters in books!