When you're reading a book (for pleasure, not work/school) do you...

read the introduction/preface? I don't know why but even if I try to force myself, I go all Santa's Little Helper and just read "blah blah blah, blah Fitzgerald blah blah drunk in a hotel blah blah blah."

And you? :hi:

why do you ask

and asking useless/senseless questions for no good reason is what we do here. ;)

Yes, I read the jacket and sometimes the preface if it's really a lead-in to the novel. Mostly, I just skip it.

The introduction/preface never makes sense if you read it before you read the book; it's also far more pleasurable to read after you've read the book because not only are you able to actually understand and get something out of it, but you learn some tidbits about the writer and the background of the book, etc.

My parents are both English teachers (retired now) and they taught me that little trick!

that's just me.

But I must admit that often it does interpret as blah, blah, blah.

But often I realize there's nothing worth it there and proceed to chapter 1.

If there's something interesting or meaty enough, I'll read it. My opinion, though, is that the intro or preface is extraneous; if it's important enough to be in the book, then put it in the chapters. If it is a preface written by someone other than the main author, then the preface/intro performs a marketing function and I'm not interested.

there can be all sorts of important points that fit into an introduction/footnotes, etc, that would bog down the main text.

worked in publishing for over 15 years and am therefore cynical. I was also refering more specifically to the preface, not the intro, which is more often than not written by the author of the book.

and lord knows it would be wrong of me to criticize anyone for being cynical ;-)

I also read the list of names the author thanks, and all of the footnotes and the bibliography.

And no, I don't get out much

Gnostic text interpretation!

I do skip over the "I'd like to thank my cub scout leader" blah blah but I read everything else.

if the intro/preface is by some one other than the author, I skip it. It's all blah blah blah about how great the book is.

If it's by the author, I'll read it, ya never know, there might be something in there relevant to the story, though usually not.

:hi:

I think that it's going to be a good idea, but hell if I'm comprehending anything while I'm reading it. And I must say that it's not a great way to start a book.

just because it's there. :shrug:

How'd you know about those?

I go straight to the dirty parts :evilgrin:

Published 'n everything (by big houses)!

That explains a lot. :-)

Boring, I know.

by an evil Lit prof who was fond of sneaking in test material from the intros and forwards. There's actually some good stuff in there from time to time.

Somehow I'd probably have guilt if I didn't. I don't actually think I've ever NOT read it.

Christ, I'll read the bottoms of cereal boxes

read the last few pages in case I die before I finish the book. ;)

It actually paid off last time. I was reading a book of short stories by Neil Gaiman, and he actually included another short story in the middle of the intro, which I would have missed if I had skipped it.

so that the story can speak for itself without being clouded by any give-aways or ideas from the author. Then I read the preface and other stuff.

If it's a reprint of a work of literature with forward by a scholar, say a Hemingway novel or Dante's Inferno or Fitzgerald, etc., then I still like to read the novel first then go back and read the scholarly commentary, though I've been known a few times to read the scholarly stuff first.

If it's a "scholarly" book (and yes, I consider reading them fun, books like "Holy War In Ancient Israel" or a book on pastoral theology or environmental ethics or labor ethics, etc.), then I *will* read the preface first, because that's where the author will talk about what he or she is trying to prove or elaborate or describe, and/or the working hypothesis of the book. Then I read the first chapter then the last chapter, then read the rest of the book. I find it easier to know where the author is going to end up and what the conclusions are, and then go back and work my way through the author's methodology. Then all the middle stuff makes sense.