I have at most a vague or kinda half-hearted idea of what I am going to read next. I pick based on mood and vibes I won’t know what they are until I am done with the book I am currently reading.

Also sometimes it’s fun to stand in front of your own shelf and choose your next book!

Appropriate skimming makes reading more enjoyable. I’m reading for fun, not because I’m going to be tested in some random detail later. Stephan King taught me to be a good skimmer. I love his stories, but I do not care about a tree he’s going to describe for 10 mins. If I feel like I missed something I can go back and reread.

I’m not going to judge anyone for actively reading fiction and you would read a textbook, but for me that level of work takes reading from enjoyable to work. I also do a lot of technical and academic reading for work so I wonder if that may be a key difference between skimmers and non skimmers

[deleted]

There are times when I have to mentally grab myself and make myself slow down and focus - I find I've skimmed so much I've lost the thread of the story or the tone of the work.

I think that's part of the concern that people have when they say you shouldn't skim - the worry that they'll start doing it too much and ruin the experience of reading.

I never skip anything outright but sometimes if i'm reading like a fantasy novel and the author takes a break from the present story to start going on and on about some kind of mythology or thousands of years of backstory my eyes kind of glaze over and most of the words don't make it all the way into my brain.

I don't skip anything when I'm reading for pleasure. I like to read slowly, pronouncing the text with my inner voice for full immersion. I will sometimes skip with rereads when I know a book very well and only want to read my favourite bits. And I most certainly skim through pages/chapters when I'm reading for work.

[deleted]

if it's a book i otherwise enjoy, i'm invested in characters and story arch but i can't be arsed to read the third page-and-a-half landscape description i'll absolutely skip that.

it's not a hard either-or for me.

I have skipped so many books...

Same, for all I care you can read it backwards...

honestly i think the way i read is very skimmy in general😭 not that I skim everything or miss stuff, but i feel like literally it's the way I read

No harm in skipping or skimming if one wants, but for me personally I have never, could never, and the idea never even crossed my mind 😛

I do read everything, except when poems appear. My eyes and brain go into cat mode and refuse to read it and do anything but read it and look at everything except the poem. I just skip that.

I feel ya. I'm in Tennessee and we're battening down our hatches too.

I do too.

No harm in a little skimming here and there

You're not delusional if you do.

I don't skim or skip. If I find the writer has lost me and I've tuned out for even a sentence, I'll go back and read it again.

So what if you skip entire chapters? Who cares? It's your time, your enjoyment. Spend it how you please.

What you take from a book is up to you and you're not hurting a single other person by skipping anything. If it appalls them that you do so, that's their problem - something they need to deal with.

> I commented in another post that it's perfectly fine to skim over, or even skip, scenes or pages - heck, entire chapters - while reading

Just skip the whole book.

Sadly, this is happening all over the country.

I agree with you, OP. When reading for pleasure, I’m under no obligation to read every word, sentence, paragraph, whatever. Or to finish the book, for that matter. I read how I like. What I like. When I like.

That said, I generally do try to read as I assume the author intended. But, if a book doesn’t grab me within the first 10-15%, I have no issue with skipping ahead to see if it gets better. Occasionally, I’ll even skip to the very end, just to see how everything turns out (for books where I’m not invested in how we got there).

It’s a little more difficult with books of short stories, but I’ll generally try to give 2-3 stories a try to see if I like the author’s style. Again, I’ll skip through the volume.

I'm not as familiar with her murder mysteries, which were contemporary at the time. I've read several of them but don't recall the titles ;)

the reluctant widow is a regency spy story.

and the talisman ring is a murder story (sort of), and my personal favourite.

I get the impression on here sometimes that people think reading is an inherently noble pursuit - replete with traditions, ethics, and responsibilities. These same people tend to get pretty self righteous about it as well.

if a book is bad enough that you don't even want to read it then just read something else. I can only imagine skipping or skimming in books I've already read

Never. I've tried but some part of my personality won't let me do it.

I skip or skim whenever I feel like it