Feasting in the Northern Oceans of Medieval Academia. Finishing books : comments.
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(no subject)
I use non-fiction books more often than I read them from cover to cover. The exceptions are books by authors I admire and enjoy, books that will be useful to me from pillar to post, and microhistory, which I devour the same way I do fiction. I so loves me a microhistory.
I get a lot of book recommendations, and my fiction/leisure reading time is short (bedtime reading), so if a book doesn't grab me in the first 50 pages, I'm unlikely to keep wasting my time on it.
Sometimes I'll try again when I think it might be the right time for a certain book. I started Gravity's Rainbow about 20 times before I finally got past the first few pages. It turned out that having a temp of 102 and a mild case of fevered delerium was the trick (I was quite ill when I read it).
(no subject)
The more I think about the non-fiction category, the more complicated this whole subject becomes. Some people really do read encyclopedias and dictionaries and guide books from cover-to-cover. But very few of them were written with that style of reading even in mind.
(no subject)
Sure. And for me, the using rather than cover-to-cover reading applies to all kinds of non-fic, not just reference books. I think I've read all of Flint's Rise of Magic at this point, but it was via a workmanlike bopping around, a reading practice that was highly constructed and intentional (tell me about demons; tell me about Isidore of Seville; tell me about catoptromancy) rather than sustained from 1-400. I rarely read nonfiction in one smooth gesture, unless I'm trying to follow an argument (as in the case of Eisenstein, for example).