How Do You Read?

[Ladyzekke]

How do you read books? Are you a speed reader, skipping over parts you find irrelevant to the story? Or do you take it all in, absorb the entire picture? Do you picture in your head what the characters look like? Do you also have voices for them that you play in your head while reading?

I myself do all of the above, it depends on the book. Some authors I love and are so good I slowly read and absorb every word, and play the scenario like a movie in my head, think about it later too when I am not reading. But of course some books have a lot of parts that are little descriptive things, and if the story isn't good enough then I just don't bother to take the time and effort to read said little things, so I skim over them. Dean Koontz is a great example of a writer that you can "skim", he loves to get into minute details that are unrelated to the main storyline. So for me, it depends on the author, if they are regarded highly to me, I will take the time to totally delve into the book.

I post this thread basically because it drives me nuts when you hear a person talk about a book, or rag about a book, when they either A)haven't even read the book, or B)read it but skipped half of it when it got boring to them (including character conversations).

Again, I sometimes skip small parts myself, but NOT character conversations, only the descriptive stuff, for instance, like two pages of a person oiling their leather saddle or something LOL.

[Aelia Jusa]

Some books I do give up on and don't finish at all if I haven't managed to get into the story within a couple of chapters. It doesn't bode well for the rest of the story and if I'm not interested in the plot or characters, then why waste my time?

For books I do manage to get into though (which is most ), I do read them all totally. I never skip to the end to see what's going to happen, and I read everything not just the interesting or relevant parts. You never know what will be important or interesting after all! Sometimes I do find though when I forget to put a bookmark in, I'll read a section or chapter or something with no recollection whatsoever of anything that happened in it, and I'll assume this was where I was up to. But then I'll get to the next section and realise I've read that bit, so I must have read all the preceding section without paying any attention at all the first time round!

[Nanobyte]

I'm pretty selective in what I read, and I sometimes find other things to do besides reading. Though, I do take the time to enjoy a good book when I'm either exhausted or totally bored. I generally read a book from cover to cover, including the prologue and/or epilogue. I can't understand the reason for reading a book if you're going to skip part of it, that's like watching a movie halfway then fastforwarding half-an-hour or so ahead. If I'm interested in the book, I usually take the time to absorb what I'm reading, that and picturing what's happening mixed in with a certain genre is almost like watching a movie. I've never seen the movie, but I'd bet a lucky penny the book 'The Relic' is a load more intense than its counterpart.

Watching a movie and getting a definite visual of what the thing looks like is not as frightening as reading what it looks like and trying to guess at it (from this paranoid perspective at least )

[Lord Starshadow]

I'm a speedreader. Not to skip parts, but just because it's my normal reading style. Consequently, I sometimes have to read something over again because I sometimes lapse into skimming, especially when reading really detailed descriptions. But I find it's easy to catch myself because...

As I read, I get a picture of what's going on; both the setting and the characters. I also hear a different voice in my head for each character, and I have a narrator voice as well. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] For those reasons, I don't like to see movies about books I've read; hardly anything will be like how I pictured it and the voices certainly won't match.

I don't skip any part of a story (prologue, epilogue, appendices) when I'm reading, although I sometimes lapse into skimming, as I mentioned before. I usually don't read a book just once either; it's inevitable that I missed something due to a lapse of skimming, so it helps me catch things that I missed the first time through.

Probably more than you wanted to know. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

<font color="#f683ad">LZ Im much like you, depends on the book, I zip through some and take my time on others...used to be, I could finish 2 decent sized paperbacks in less than 2 days.....Now I am not quite so voracious.

Some books have portions I skim over due to irrelevance but more than likely if there are too many of these I just quit the book. Since my reading time is rather limited these days, I am pretty picky about which books I will try. </font>

[Sir Taliesin]

<font color=orange>If I have to skip though a book to get it read, then I just wasted my money. If I read the first fifty or so pages and I'm not hooked, then I've wasted my money. I like to be totally engrossed, in order to enjoy a book.

I shutter to think how much money I've spent over the last 30 years on books I didn't like.</font>

[NiceWorg]

I never skip over any parts.. one shouldn´t be that excited to see what happens next, and personally I can´t take a risk that I miss something when I skip. Good authors make even slower parts of book feel lively and meaningful.
Anyway, I take it all and sometimes read pieces twice to get a better grip of the story. I usually imagine characters faces, but not voices.. almost in any book personality drives over their looks.

[johnny]

I always try to picture everything in my mind, that's why most of the time i'm pretty dissapointed when i see the movie from a book.

I was very dissapointed after watching Stephen King's It. Not so much by the characters in the movie, but more that they skipped entire parts of the book. I had this image in my head that was totally raped by the movie.

Also Lotr was totally different than from what i had in my mind after reading the book. I don't exactly know what i expected, but it was completely different. Not like in dissapointing though, just different.

Another example is Enemy at the gates. If you read the book, you'll know what i mean. They picked a totally wrong cast for this movie. This one was extremely dissapointing for me, especially if you know what a huge budget they had for making this movie.

[Charlie]

I only read picture books......saves all the skipping bits and farting around.

[Gnarf]

I read from left to right (the books I prefer don't make much sense the othre way around). I never skip anything (unless it's school stuff of some sort ), then I'd rather stop reading that book. I tend to read parts over again because I for some reason think I missed something (which is about never the case). And yeah, I have a picture in my head of what the chars look like, and they got voices... if it's a good book I'll be thinking of'em when not reading as well.