Ah. I thought the /s sarcasm and didn't understand why what you wrote was sarcastic. Lol.

In high school and undergrad I’d read the whole text book. Grad school killed that quick. 500 pages per class multiple nights a week plus journal articles for independent research. If you’re reading every word in grad school you’ll never survive.

I felt the same about Tolkien for a long time. I’m giving them all a try on audiobook. I find it’s more enjoyable - I don’t notice the lengthy descriptions as much, the conversations between characters is more nuanced and I can do it all while walking or cleaning the house so I’m not just sitting thru the longer parts. The hobbit was perfect, halfway thru two towers now and it’s getting longer but still way better listening than attempting to read.

i read somewhere a while back that the consensus in literary circles is that tolkien was not a fiction writer (in so far one can reach a consensus on such a thing). the reasons they gave are pretty much what you say here. but his books became first a cult classic, and then...somehow...or the other...infiltrated mainstream consciousness.

he wrote during a time of great societal turmoil that marked the end of an age, and my personal theory is that the dense and turgid prose was actually exactly what people were looking for. the prose is exactly what a layman would imagine an ancient document about bygone worlds would read like, and if the world as u know it is collapsing around u, it can be very comforting to read something like that.

Anyone bought from ‘books please’?

There’s a book I really want and I found it cheapest on the website books please, I’ve seen good reviews but idk if I can trust it or not :/ does anyone know if it’s a scam?

I read it over a period of 4 months before my first trip to Paris 30 years ago. I had a temp job where I was the onsite temp agency rep/coordinator at a hospital so I literally had no work unless a dept called requesting a temp. Memory is sketchy but I do recall thinking that the quality of the writing and the storytelling declined quite a bit in the last couple of volumes. I suppose I could Google it but IIRC, some of the later volumes weren’t completely finished before Proust died.

Yeah this comes across a lot on here. As if it is sinful to stop reading books, or there is some sort of personal XP bar that goes up with every book "read" and has some sort of moral weight to it. I think a lot of people treat reading too seriously compared to other artforms. You would rarely see someone taken to task for skipping songs on an album or quitting a TV show halfway through a season. But here we have daily threads of people wracked with guilt about how they might not be reading something the right way. Very strange.

I second this but it should be read by people in their late 30’s or later.

Here are many references/links to Mr. Rochester symbolizing Satan:

Isaiah 14:12-20

“You have been cut down to the earth,

You who have weakened the nations!"

When Jane first meets Mr. Rochester he is tumbling down to earth.

2 Corinthians 11:14

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

“I had hardly ever seen such a handsome youth…and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning and anything else that is bright but antipathetic" (133-134)

When meeting Mr. Rochester again, he is surrounded by fire and speaks of blasphemy.

“Come to the fire, said the master”, “a novice not worship her priest! That sounds blasphemous” (p145)

Their next meeting Mr. Rochester is in his “after dinner mood” and is described as having “dark eyes”, “great dark eyes” (p 152-153)

Speaking of his previous womanizing ways, he talks of “sweet, fresh pleasure” and calls Jane a “neophyte” (p160)

The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:1-5

“I believe it was inspiration rather than temptation…it is no devil…it has put on the robes of an angel of light”

Jane says, “it is not a true angel”, to which Mr. Rochester replies, “how do you know between a seraph of the fallen abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne? Between a guide and a seducer” (p160)

Luke 10:18

He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

When Jane and Mr. Rochester finally embrace in love, the great horse-chestnut in the yard is split by lightning (p196)

Engaged to be married she states “My future husband was becoming to me my whole world…my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol. (p316)

Satan is also a deceiver, and Mr. Rochester certainly was deceptive in marrying Jane, with his crazy wife in the attic.

Later in the book, she hears him call out to her, it’s a supernatural moment in the book. It’s not god, it’s her man, Mr. Rochester, who symbolizes satan. He is now blind, and dependant on her. Jane attains godhood in her religion of the self by their reunification at the end.

There is no book cop in the sky making sure you read every word, so I don't see why this would be a source of worry for anyone. You can "read" a book however you want to read it. Personally, I don't know why someone would deliberately skip sections. If I don't want to be reading the book, I'd just as soon put it down and move on to the next things than keep turning the pages w/o really reading the content. But if that's how someone wants to handle things, then so be it.

He's got good points. As an author, I'm constantly irritated with how much Audible takes for what is, essentially, hosting services. The production costs for audio mean that the payback for any project is likely to be slow, or possibly not happen at all if the book doesn't take off. And since Audible, in concert with Amazon, controls who sees what books on any search via their algos, it's largely pay to play.

I've been lucky, and I'll be the first to admit it, but luck doesn't mean the game is fair for everyone who sits down at the table. I'd like that game to be fair for everyone.

Yes, Oh master of the obvious! But why do they have to pay more for an electronic book than a physical book?

I’m not a prude, or a crazy religious nut, but I usually skim or skip the sex scenes.

I have the opposite take. I'd skim a textbook because I only need the most relevant information but wouldn't skim fiction because it's enjoyable and I want the full experience. If an author describes a tree for several pages I'd just stop reading it entirely.

In this instance it's when an incredibly important and otherwise legitimate institution for the preservation of knowledge and culture decides that COVID means they can just publically become a full-on piracy site for ebooks, freely providing infinite copies of any book they have in their database. A noble idea, sure, but also 100%, unambiguously illegal.

No, I read every word. If I accidentally miss a sentence, or a paragraph, or a page, I go back and read it.

I even read the sections in languages I don't understand.

There is nothing wrong with skipping or skimming, it’s just that I can’t do it as I feel I will miss something important in the plot. When younger I wondered how people could read so quickly. I thought that I must be such a slow reader. It didn’t make me read any differently though. Sometimes I might not be enjoying a book, but as I have invested the time and feel the need to see it through. I feel I should respect the author and 99 times out of 100 I end up getting something out of the book.

I know there is also a belief that we need to be "productive" all the time. I don't subscribe to that philosophy and choose to spend some of my time just enjoying what life has to offer.

I can't recall ever being asked by people outside of my family why I "waste my time" reading, but if I ever was asked, I would probably respond that I have created a life that allows me to spend time doing what I want to do, and reading is top of that list.

I only skim if I’m reading for a deadline. If I find myself wanting to skim while I’m reading for pleasure, I just put the book down. When I’m enjoying a book, I read every word.

That said, I might come back later to a book I put down if I feel like I just wasn’t in the right mood at the time.

Why would you even read at all?

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Edit: Should clarify that I don't mean this as "why would anyone even READ lmao." I mean it as "why would would you (OP) read a book that is intended to be consumed as a whole, if you omit large parts of the story completely? What is the point in it?"

Sometimes I’ll skim unintentionally during tense scenes. The instinctive desire to see what happens next, especially in a scene where a character or characters that I care about are in some kind of peril, can override my attempts to read thoroughly. Those situations make for great re-reads though.

Is it not an omnibus? One book that contains a number of books? So it is a/are some book/s.

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