I'm fascinated hearing how other people read. It's such an idiosyncratic thing. Recently a friend was telling me that she's recently read three modern novels, "all awful", about characters who depressed her. "But I always want to give the author the benefit of the doubt and always read the number of pages equal to my age. As I'm 74 I read each book up to the 74th page." She sighed with a quiet smile. "And then I went back to 'Sense and Sensibility'; it was like going back to an old friend." Lovely!