I'm reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy right now and I'd finding it to be challenging. Sometimes I'll just skim entire sentences – which led me to wonder if other people do this? How "closely" do you read? If you don't really get the gist of a sentence do you move on, or try to figure it out? Sometimes I'll look up a reference in the moment, but it's not the way I prefer to read a book.
by apt12h
29 Comments
I read books I enjoy.
That generally means I read every word.
Well, if you’re skimming sentences, are you even reading the book?
I don’t skim anything ever. I want to read the book and I found skimming or trying to read fast just takes away from the enjoyment of it all.
If I don’t understand something I re-read or look up words if I have to. If I notice myself loosing focus I take a break, get a drink and resume a few minutes later.
If I do all that and I still feel like skimming the book because it doesn’t catch my attention the book simply isn’t for me and I read another one.
I know everyone has a different reading style, but I personally don’t understand why you would skim read a book. What’s the point?
I don’t skim.
I am not assigned the books I read, so I don’t skim them.
I don’t do it on purpose, but I sometimes skim while I’m reading. If there’s a dialogue heavy scene I’ll just focus on the dialogue without paying much attention to anything else.
I catch myself though, and sometimes I’ll go back and read more thoroughly so I don’t miss anything important.
If there’s a lot of clearly unrelated to the plot dialogue, I’ll skim (unless it really grabs my attention). I don’t have any personal hard and fast rules about it with the exception of techno-babble, sci-fi is the worst offender in this genre.
I almost always skim when it comes to any sort of techno-babble. I can’t stand it unless it’s a cool or super unique idea and it has to at least make sense within my suspension of disbelief.
That’s crazy. I read because I enjoy reading. And I only read books that I’m interested in. So I don’t skim or skip read anything. Any words I get stuck on I’ll hold down on the word look it up there and then. (I use the books app). Any book I don’t get sucked into or am not enjoying I’ll stop reading. Life’s too short and there’s too many books.
One of the reasons for me to read is to appreciate the beauty of the language, so I read every word.
I relate to this a lot. Some books just demand more decoding than others.
I’ve found the problem isn’t always attention span or patience, but the language barrier inside the same language. When the structure or vocabulary comes from another time or world, you’re basically translating while you read.
I’ve started reading some major works in a “dual” format: the original text side by side with a clear modern rewrite. It’s been a game changer. You keep the depth but don’t lose the thread every few lines. It’s surprising how much easier it is to see what the author meant when the modern phrasing sits right there for comparison. It works especially well for older writing, but really for any dense or complex text.
I will sometimes skim thru a book if it’s not capturing my attention. This way I can decide if I want to continue reading or dnf. Otherwise I read every word for the most part.
Ummm … not at all?
Totally normal to skim Le Carré. His writing is like a puzzle. I slow down only when something feels important or emotional.
If I find myself skimming, I take that as a sign to quit the book.
I listen to audiobooks, so I can’t really skim. But if I find myself struggling to pay attention (which is very unusual for me), it’s a sign to put the book down and choose another. Maybe that book isnt for me or maybe I’ll try to pick it up again later when I’m in a different headspace, but forcing myself to slog through a book I’m not getting anything out of is a one-way ticket to a book slump and decreased interest in reading overall.
The only time i skim is when i am at the end of a book and i find the resolution disappointing. Or the author drags out the conclusion.
Never.
I only skim when looking at the first chapter of a book I might want to read.
I skim all the time. Read however you want. Sometimes there’s a long internal monologue or a half page description of a room that does nothing for the story.
I pretty much always stop to look up unfamiliar words unless it’s *really* obvious, but even then I like to learn new ways to convey information so I’ll probably stop and look it up anyway.
I tend to skim if the book is droning on about something I don’t think is super relevant and is boring. Like in *The Picture of Dorian Gray* there’s paragraphs upon paragraphs of the author just… Describing all the hobbies Dorian got up to? I’d stop and read every fourth paragraph or so to confirm yup, still on about his hobbies. Pick out a keyword to confirm *what* hobby was being discussed but ultimately I did not delve too hard into those pages of the book.
I don’t skim, I just quit reading a book if I can’t enjoy it enough to actually, you know, read it…
I do this sometimes when the material seems to be the author just writing to write.
I just finished Wolves of Calla, and I enjoy King very much, but there were parts with Callahan that seemed to be King writing just to write. After page 300 I started skimming those sections to move the book along. Skimming didn’t effect this book, hoping it doesn’t effect the rest of the Dark Tower series.
It depends on what you mean by “skim.” If I am reading every sentence, even I you don’t always get the gist and move on to the next sentence anyway, I don’t call that skimming. In the vast majority of cases I will pick up the meaning eventually and still comprehend the material.
For me skimming is about focusing on headings and key words and often involves skipping not just sentences, but whole paragraphs or even whole pages. It’s really just about comprehending the bare outline of the book or other reading material.
When I need to closely analyze reading material, or when I’m reading something particularly complex, I may have to read it more than once. If I read every sentence but find that I’m still lost, I may need to really study every sentence to understand the material. I experience this more often with nonfiction, but also with some complex fiction like James Joyce’s *Ulysses*.
When the author is describing what the characters look like on page 1. I’m not going to remember that. I’ll just skim that
I’ll do this for certain books. Sometimes I like the story, but find the author a bit rambly or there are paragraphs that just seem pointless, I will skim right over them. I have a some aphantasia, so a bunch of visually descriptive paragraphs will be skimmed right over as well.
It’s funny this question came up, because i am reading neil stephenson right now, and i can never decide if i actually like his stories or if he is just a pretentious windbag. I’m now at 80 percent of the book, but I basically skimmed the last 3 chapters. I think tonight will decide if this is a DNF or not.
The last time I can confidently say I definitely skimmed was some parts of House of Leaves (if you have read House of Leaves you will know what I mean).
If I find myself wanting to skim I just give up and read something else. Clearly not enjoying it that much and I read for fun.
If you’re not liking the book set it aside. There’s no reason to waste precious reading time on something you’re not enjoying. Find a different book.
The only time I ever skim is when I get farther along in news articles. But then, the farther you get down those, the less important the info is to the story and at that point I’m skimming for interesting bits. If I start skimming a book it’s because I’m deciding if it’s worth reading or not.
I don’t skim any books