Sometimes I’ll read a novel in bits and pieces. I may start in the middle and jump around and never read the book in the correct order. I may or may not read the whole book. Sometimes I’ll try to read just the favorite part of a novel that I’ve already read but that’s too difficult and I just end up reading the whole book. I would never read from the end to see how everything turns out. For books of enjoyment I rarely read the Preface or Forward. If they wanted me to read those things, they should have put them in the book. Pages numbered i, ii, iii, iv are out too.
Nope, I read each book front-to-back. I might not finish it if it doesn’t hold my interest, but I never skip around (even if it’s a book I’ve read before).
Try “Rayuela” (Hopscotch) by Julio Cortázar:
“Written in an episodic, snapshot manner, the novel has 155 chapters, the last 99 being designated as “expendable.” The book can be read either in direct sequence from chapter 1 to 56 … or by hopscotching through the entire set of 155 chapters … according to a table provided by the author … There are several other ways to read the novel, such as reading only the odd or even pages, or choosing chapters in completely random order.”
I always have at least two, sometimes as many as four, books going at the same time. Currently:
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (Ron Hansen)
“Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us” (Tom Vanderbilt)
"Mentor, Message, and Miracles (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 2) (John P. Meier)
Don’t really recommend it though. I had a dream about Jesse James giving Jesus a ride to Jerusalem.
YOU PEOPLE, especially THAT ONE, never cease to amaze me. I have the book on hold at my local library. I also reserved some Doors, Eurythmics, & Blondie CD’s while I was at it..
Having read it the regular front to back way, I’ve considered re-reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five by jumping around. If you’ve read it, you’ll know what I mean…
I will usually read a new book front-to-back. But I sometimes skip around, too. It depends on the book, my familiarity with it, and my state of mind.
Books with complex plots are much harder to skip through randomly. On the other extreme, approaching an encyclopedia that way is a lot of fun - you pick up all kinds of random knowledge that you might have never encountered otherwise.
Having several books going at once is par for the course, too. Right now I’ve got a novel and a travel book going for amusement. Plus a couple of reference texts I’m working my way through.
Samuel Johnson said something to the effect that if someone begins reading in the middle of the book and finds it agreeable, he should keep on going. It may be that if he goes back to the beginning, he would lose the inclination to go on…
Just a thought.
With best regards,
Steve Mack
I’m a cover to cover kinda guy myself. Including forwards, introductions, and iii pages. shrug
The appendices are the best part in a few books.
I’ll have one or two books going at one time, but they most likely will be in different genre. I’m at the start of Anthem and finished Chris Buckley’s “No way to treat a First Lady”.
Also I like to read in bed and the Stephenson book is way too heavy to keep upright, so I have to read it on my side. Probably way too much detail.
I eat them.
-First time through I’ll read a book front to back, sometimes mixing order on re-read. Mixing it can be a problem, however, at least for me. I tried it rereading Neal Stephenson’s “Cryptonomicon” which jumps around through plot lines a lot even when read in proper order. I couldn’t make sense of it out of order. Its an interesting book read front-to-back with enough time to appreciate the plot twists.
I usually read the last page(s) of a book first, then I read it front to back. I can’t endure the suspense otherwise 
. Recently, I read the Picture of Dorian Gray, and I skipped around in that one a lot. But usually I don’t do that.
When I pick up a book by an unknown author, I’ll often open to a page at random. If the writer’s style doesn’t appeal to me, I’ll pass it by.
Douglas R Hofstader had the best take on this. I think it was in “Metamagical Themas” he proposed the idea that a story might have an expendible beginning and continue absent-mindedly after it had reached its proper conclusion. He used a few examples.
But it’s a flight of fancy. The Gutenberg approach is to start at the beginning, continue to the end, and then stop, as the Red Queen says. My darling wife refuses to be told the end of a film, as it will “spoil it for her” but frequently checks the last few pages of the book to see whodunnit (or that they live happy ever after).
McLuhan would say that youse lot are applying post-gutenberg paradigms to a gutenberg medium.
I’ve tried the non-sequential approach on Slaughterhouse Five. Perversely, (or perhaps not) it needs to be read in order.
The medium is the average.
I, too, have multiple books/magazines on the go; some factual (which bore me to death, but I want information), some fictional (usually SciFi/fantasy). I have three different places in the house where I read, but that doesn’t seem to have any bearing on what type of reading material might land in any particular place at any particular time. Stuff sits there until I get back to it.
djm
For novels I go beginning to end, my wife always reads the end first, always. I almost always read magazines backwards.
No, the medium is the mean!
It appears many of us have similar habits. I too usually have several books going at once. Right now I’m reading “Chickenhawk” the memoirs of a Viet Nam helicoper pilot, another one about early Christianity in the words of the “church fathers” a book of short stories by Brian Lumley, and a book about homosexuality and perceptions of masculinity in modern America.
Cheapskate! 
djm