Which bits of books do you skip?

[BigDahliaFan]

Just reading another thread and Lord of the Rings came up .... I skipped over all the Tom Bombadil bits....

I do this most of the time 🤦‍♀️

Which book was it of the series that had that one (long) poem repeated about 40 times?

I also skipped through The Joy of Prehistoric Sex Plains of Passage

I don’t ever skip bits really but sometimes on a second reading I’ll read through it more slowly and discover bits which I may have read quickly first time round.

Bits in italics that describe what the protagonist or, more often, someone of whose identity you're intentionally not quite certain, was doing 20 years ago.

That could have been any of them 😬 I think the mammoth hunters was rather poem laden.

In the case of Dan Brown, I skip the part between page 1 and the end.

Any descriptive bits, there is no point the author describing a room, a weapon or anything really in detail, I can't picture things so its wasted on me. It's the main reason I gave up on the Hobbit, all those people calling to his door, each one described in detail, drove me nuts!

I was reading the Bhagavad Gita but it had long rambling notes by the translator before each chapter and frankly I just wanted to know what Krishna was up to now.

Was it also written in Latin @MrsDanversGlidesAgain?

If you haven't read it I can't tell you without telling you how Lord Peter finds out how the murder was done and by who. 🤔Or how the victim came to be dead, to be more accurate.

I came here fully prepared to say ‘None, NEVER’!

Also yes, Tom Bombardil. The only time I’ve ever skipped reading part of a book.

😂

Shocked English teacher here: I never skip bits! I didn't think that was allowed the librarian might come and arrest you!!!

If I'm going to skip bits of something I wouldn't read the book in the first place or I'd abandon it had I already started. I couldn't keep reading it having skipped bits! That would be cheating!!!

Same, italics kill me, skip over them completely.

I really should skip introductions. I'm reading 'The End of the Affair' at the moment and the introduction revealed a major plot point in the first sentence! I assumed it would be something that happened fairly early in but no, last 20 pages. FFS.

The introduction to my Penguin Classics version of Daniel Deronda usefully had a warning at the beginning telling you not to read it because it revealed the denouement. I read it many years ago and first had to look up 'denouement' then spent the entire book thinking 'is that the denouement? Or that?' But for a modern reader the denouement is not as shocking as it would have been for a Victorian so it completely passed me by. Should really reread, I'm probably a better age to appreciate it now!

Anyway, I never skip anything to my detriment. I'm an enthusiastic reader of Amazon samples though so I don't buy many duffers any more.

The descriptions of school plays in the later Chalet School books. Too formulaic even for comfort reading

All the little quotes at the start of a chapter in the Strike books.

Sorry JKR - I do love you though.

I like little quotes at the start of chapters. I sit there and wonder, why did you choose that? or oooh, must read that poet/novelist/ whoever.

Another who skips the long songs and verses in LOTR.

Also any sex scenes, I'm just not interested in reading the details.

I don't like the quotes at the start of the Strike chapters either! I wish you could skip them on audible, they get on my nerves. It's probably just become I'm not clever enough to understand them though 😆

I never read epigraphs. And I particularly hate it when they do them for every chapter. JKR does this in Strike and while I adore the series I don’t see the need for all the silly quotes

Long drawn out fights. Every sword thrust and parry, just skip to the bit where the foe karks it

I think literally everyone skips both of those!

Like a pp, I skip Joseph’s speeches in Wuthering Heights. I skip Ash’s poetry in AS Byatt’s possession, but not Christabel Lamotte’s. I skip all the curate scenes in Shirley.

All of the war bits of War and Peace.

Any description of the countryside by Thomas Hardy. So dull. I'm an English graduate and I understand pathetic fallacy but life is too short to read that much description of hedgerow.

The only time I ever skipped a part in a book was in Stephen Kings The Stand, I had to skip the crucifixion part. I don't know why, I don't mind gory scenes and read all other Stephen King books, no problem, but this...

Song lyrics and poems at the beginning of every chapter