entropynchaos t1_j4zbkeq wrote on January 19, 2023 at 8:32 AM

Almost all books that are older and have new forwards or etc will have spoilers in them, because it is expected that people already know what happens. You typically have to work pretty hard not to know the plot and spoilers of major works of fiction older than ten years old. I think it’s unreasonable to expect that older books won’t be spoiled, and if you don’t want them to be, it’s on the reader to avoid anything that might.

Merle8888 t1_j51oe05 wrote on January 19, 2023 at 7:52 PM

This perspective confuses me. How many books you have not read could you describe the entire plot and ending of?

A few, no doubt: a handful of cultural touchstones, books especially popular in your circle that you’ve never actually read, anything you’ve already seen a screen adaptation of.

Now make that list and compare it to the many thousands of books 10+ years old that currently exist. I don’t care how old a book is, unless it’s Romeo and Juliet level of cultural penetration, most people who haven’t read it won’t know the details.

entropynchaos t1_j52k15p wrote on January 19, 2023 at 11:14 PM

General population or me? If you’re talking about me, specifically, I’m an outlier. When I’m looking for a book I don’t look for a title or a cover that interest me (because those really have no bearing on whether a book will be good or not), I click into the link of every single book in the category I’m looking at, read the back blurb, any additional descriptive content, and then, if it sounds interesting, read reviews until I’ve found out all the plot and spoilers. If I still like what I see, I read the book.

I might read the blurb, descriptive content, and reviews of five hundred books before I find one I want to read (if I’m looking online, and I usually am). I do this every day because I read one to two books per day and it’s rare for me to have a backlog of books waiting to be read.

So…number of books with plot, spoilers, and endings I could remember well enough to describe, talk about in a general conversation, or perhaps recommend to someone based on their likes (with the caveat that I haven’t read it, of course)? Hundreds, at least. Thousands probably, given slight prompting, though I’m sure I would have lost at least some of the details, given I didn’t find the book interesting enough to read at the time.