I know we have a lot of readers here. Yay reading!
A book has three general parts:
Front matter
The body of the book or principle text
Back matter
Front matter might include: table of contents, dedication, introduction
Back matter might include : index, glossary, references, most often at the back: acknowledgements.
Are you someone who reads it all? Do you always read the acknowledgements? Do you enjoy seeing the dedication? Is a chapter breakdown/table of contents important to you?
I would say I don’t always read the acknowledgements - if I’m really attached to a book and loved it, I definitely will. I became aware recently as I was reading a book that a family member wrote and recently released that the acknowledgments can really be a very personal thanks from an author (felt VERY personal reading it from this person I know so well!). However at times they are generic.
Curious to know other readers habits for how you start (front matter) or finish (back matter) a book.
For me it depends on the book. At a minimum, I skim the acknowledgements. Those aren’t as important to me. I do like reading the Afterword as it often provides some background or history that pertains to the setting or plot. Often, I find interesting information or recommendations for other suggested reading. I often end up googling for more historical information or detail so appreciate when the author provides some recommendations.
I recently read a novel by an author I’d never read before though her books are typically set in a local city, Baltimore. The novel I read was her most recent publication, and I was a bit taken aback, pleasantly so, when I saw she had dedicated her novel to the five employees of my local paper who were murdered last summer. Her book contained an Afterword that really affected me personally when I read it, as she described her recollection of the day of that mass shooting and it was eerily similar to my own.
What the author writes in his/her Afterword or Acknowledgments often adds interesting information that I appreciate knowing and/or learning (moreso the Afterword, not as much the Acknowledgements).
I almost always skim the acknowledgements even though they are usually pretty dull! I never liked missing lectures in college either. I love the afterwards in historical novels where the author explains what is or isn’t true. Nothing worse than reading a novel with lots of made up words and discovering only after you’ve finished that they’ve been defined in the back of the book. (This happens more with e-books than real books.)
I read/skim the acknowledgement(s) and yes, usually dull, since I have no idea who they are. But it’s partly to see who edited, sometimes even a string of advisors. Sometimes, a hint how little an established fiction writer actually wrote him/herself. (That bothers me. With some, you can even see it in the writing style changes, as a series progresses.) Just call this an idiosyncracy of mine.
But I’ve come to enjoy the Foreword, that often academic context.
I read it all . And I read a lot (over 100 books/year).
I always skimmed over the front and back but when D worked in publishing I became more aware of acknowlegements, etc. (especially when her name appeared in several children’s books!).
Actually, now that they sometimes have some short trailers or mini-episodes (Easter eggs) at the end of the credits, I’ve noticed a lot more people sitting through all the credits these days.
I recently read Circe. When finished, I read the end pages and discovered a nice who’s who of the gods. Wished it had been in the front of the book so I could have referred to it as I read.
I generally skim the extras at the end. I do like when a historical fiction has a part at the end to tell you what is true and what was “made up”.
I don’t usually read the introduction on classics, they tend to ruin the book by revealing plot etc.
Many books now have questions in the back for discussion. If I am reading for a book group, I go over these.
I wish all books had a short glossary of characters in the front of the book to refer to as you read - to go back and remember, “who is this person again?” - just some reference to how they relate to the main character(s).
And there are authors words before…for the life of me, can’t remember if it’s a Dashiell Hammet or Raymond Chandler book, have not been able to find it…that changed my view of the process of writing.
One of the features I love in the translated Andrea Camilleri Inspector Montalbano books is a section with the meanings and/or origins of some of the words/phrases/slang used in the book.
I was reading the acknowledgements in a Sara Paretsky book and found a thank you to some of my cousins.
I do love books where there are maps of the area written about, post scripts telling how a book came about, what’s truth or what’s fudged in a historical.
Yay reading!