Here is an entire thread dedicated to that question with a handy chart.

Pray you don't get tinnitus. I've got it and I haven't enjoyed complete silence in decades. I currently have the news on tv and music on the radio and I can still hear the ringing.

Well, I don't spend much time watching YouTube.

It wasn't. I don't use /s for sarcasm. I hope my words convey my message adequately.

Often leads to downvotes, though, I gotta admit.

No, I read every word. If I accidentally miss a sentence, or a paragraph, or a page, I go back and read it.

I even read the sections in languages I don't understand.

Is it not an omnibus? One book that contains a number of books? So it is a/are some book/s.

Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter. Just read the book/s.

I read it recently. Most likely you won't understand my references but I do find eerie contemporary echoes with Nadia Bartel's lockdown parties, Bec Judd's Brighton crime wave and the Micheal Clarke/Jade Yarbrough/Karl Stefanovic kerfuffle.

So, yeah, to some extent Australia resembles The Great Gatsby 100 years later.

No. I just have shelves and piles of books. Oh, and boxes, but I'm getting some new shelves so I'll get the books out of the boxes and onto the shelves and hopefully reduce the piles as well.

I have one of his short story collections, Kiss Kiss, which I liked well enough.

>what is it about a book cover that attracts you to pick up a copy of a book by an unknown author?

That rarely happens. However, the Bill Gregory cover illustration of Laura Joh Rowland's Shinju did attract my attention. It is a medieval Japanese style drawing of what looks to be a parade over a bridge with a city scene in the mid ground and a snow tipped mountain in the background (although it may just be a busy bridge, upon closer inspection).

That did not lead me to buy the book, it led me to read the back cover blurb, which did lead me to buy the book by an unknown to me author.

Interestingly, there are a number of other editions of that book with different covers. If I had come across one of those other editions I would not have read the back cover blurb and would not have bought the book.

It's up to you.

I think about it, mull it over. Writing it down helps me formulate and clarify my thoughts.

I don't read reviews or articles until after I've written mine. If I have missed something well that's too bad. I don't really expect anyone to read my reviews, anyway. They disappear in amongst the hundreds or thousands of other reviews.

To be fair, that's the way my brain works anyway. I have a Humanities degree and I am accustomed to thinking by writing.

Why doesn't it? Anyway, see the title of the post. It helps me process and think about them.

I find writing a review does that for me.

Maybe highly popular contemporary novels are no longer your thing.

Of course. I'm not gonna learn by osmosis

Nah, some guy on the internet read it and upon finishing said they didn't understand it and it's not worth reading. That's good enough for me.

I don't rate so much on enjoyment as on perceived quality.

5 = great

4 = good

3 = okay

2 = poor

1 = terrible

The medium is the message.

Yeah, great book. Funny, too.

You didn't finish the second sentence.

I just use goodreads.

Yeah, great book. Banks is one of my favourite authors.

Try a writing sub. This is a sub for books