Do you read book's Forewords?

[From The Uncanny Valley]

>Neil Gaiman

Noooooope

 

[funwithshemales69]

Generally yes if its an extended history lesson which doesnt devolve into explaining the book. Few books are like this, Im gonna shill Robert E Howard everywhere and his books have good forewards about his life and the books he read, the history he knew, the things he draws upon etc. Orwell sometimes has it. My copy of Brave New World has a really shitty foreward by the Handmaids Tale lady which is all about how he was a pioneer of dystopian literature. Some parts of it are good like how Huxley was a eugenics advocate and part of the lost generation (Old enough for WWI, too old for WWII, Tolkien). Some are good, most are not.

 

[The Blue Morpho]

I usually read books cover to cover, including forewords, out of some OCD compulsion. Even in school when my professors would tell me to skim through material, I'd usually still read it all. Sometimes forewords have good information in them, especially if it is an older book: things like historical context and where the topic has gone since then.

 

[Hweeks]

I used to, but stopped after a total idiot author spoiled another author's entire book in a forward/intro. (Last Days by Brian Evenson) Now I don't even read the review quotes before the story.

 

[Absolutego]

This is funny. I recall a plenty of writers who were around in the '20s-50s eventually writing forewords for editions of their works put out during the mass market paperback book of the '50s onwards. There's quite a few mass markets with "foreword by author" in them for a book that was supposedly originally put out like a decade or two before.

It's actually some of Tolkien's best correspondence, I particularly like the part where he rips apart the whole concept of allegorical fiction:

"Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so ever since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." -J.R.R. Tolkien

Would've loved to be a fly on the wall when he was talking to C.S. Lewis on the subject, since Lewis was both a devotee, and profoundly un-subtle in his use of, allegorical fiction.

 

[Elf Supremacist]

Neil Gaiman

This bastard ruined my copy of Fahrenheit 451 with his retarded drivel.

The only forwards I've ever liked were by Arthur C Clarke about his own works. Songs of Distant Earth had a forward (or maybe an afterward, I can't remember) about a technology used in the novel that seemed to be developing in the real world. Rama II talks about how much he enjoyed working with Gentry Lee and how he never intended to write anything after Rendezvous with Rama. One of the Space Odyssey books talks about the real NASA ship called the discovery and the crew's lunar loop and how they almost joked they saw a monolith on the moon. Another one in that series talked about making the movie and working with Kubrick. You could tell he loved his craft and the science behind it.

Ray Bradbury wrote plenty of afterwards on Fahrenheit 451 and I think it was because he loved the characters as if they were real people. He also wrote a piece about how he saw a woman with radio headphones and it spooked him. My favorite of all was him writing about spending dimes at the local college library to use the typewriters there because his kids wouldn't stop trying to play with him while he was in his office.

Overall, I will not read any forward or afterward by anybody other than the author. They rarely, if ever, have as much love for the text and how it was made.

 

[Soup Sammiches]

I've been known to read up to SIX words in a book. Jealous?

 

[ScarletDevil]

I didn't know Lolita had a foreword until after I finished it, which honestly made it much more thrilling to read since you have no clue what happens to Dolores or Humbert without it

the copy i have has a foreword that straight up just spoils the book, absolute niggerlicious shit

I've had too many experiences like this too, especially republished classics that assume you've already read it before for some reason

 

[Jobama]

Half of the time it spoils the book so no.

 

[Merton J. Dingle]

Pretty much every time. They almost always give some insight into the book without spoiling it or some sort of food for thought.

 

[Anime Waifu NFT collector]

I did it only at first and then I stopped because it's a waste of time, if it's written by the author it could have some value, but almost always it's some random faggot no one cares about, even if I know the person I don't care about their opinion and I would just rather read the book, each page of forewords read is one less page of real books read, I have Nietzsche books where the foreword is written by some leftist trying to bias me.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

It's actually some of Tolkien's best correspondence, I particularly like the part where he rips apart the whole concept of allegorical fiction:

"Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so ever since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." -J.R.R. Tolkien

Would've loved to be a fly on the wall when he was talking to C.S. Lewis on the subject, since Lewis was both a devotee, and profoundly un-subtle in his use of, allegorical fiction.

That sounds like something redditor-types would intentionally ignore.

 

[Nitro!]

I'll read it to get a framing of the contents. Sometimes that framing is kinda stupid, but I don't read a lot of fiction so it running the risk of ruining the rest of the book is pretty low. Most of the time it adds something interesting.

 

[Otterly]

I don’t read them, no. I want to read the book, not someone else’s opinion of the book. Very occasionally I’ve read them after I’ve read the book, but I don’t read them before.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Generally, especially if it's from a translated work since it gives you a sense of their approach in translation. The ones that are like 20 pages and they go into how important their late Uncle was in inspiring them to do blah blah blah - those are worth skipping.