Preface, Prologue, Introduction, Epilogue etc: Do you read them??

I have sort of a strange question for you all, that I really hope to get some answers on. Do you read everything in a book? Not just the meat of the book (which I know there are lots of people that might skip the parts between dialogue, or maybe skip dialogue, or other methods of skimming a book) but the other things that come before and after. Like the prologue, epilogue, forward, preface, author notes, acknowledgments, introduction, etc. I never used to read all the extras in a book, but since I have become a book reviewer I have be using the information in the author notes and introductions to formulate questions for interviews. Then I stared reading the prologues and epilogues, once I was informed of what they are. I always thought it was just some random information from the author about how they wrote the book or some other non-related entry.

Then I was educated to the facts: a prologue is “a preliminary discourse; a preface or introductory part of a discourse, poem, or novel.”(http://www.dictionary.com/). This means that it sort of sets the stage, or in some cases foreshadows the story, but it almost always is directly related to the story. Conversely, the terms “INTRODUCTION, FOREWORD, PREFACE REFER to material given at the front of a book to explain or introduce it to the reader. A FOREWORD IS part of the front matter and is usually written by someone other than the author, often an authority on the subject of the book. A PREFACE IS the author's own statement, and often includes acknowledgments. It follows the FOREWORD (if there is one) and is also part of the front matter. The INTRODUCTION IS always by the author. It may be extensive and is usually printed as part of the text.” (http://www.dictionary.com/). And lastly the epilogue is “a short postscript to any literary work, such as a brief description of the fates of the characters in a novel.” (http://www.dictionary.com/).


So with all of this new information I have been more inclined to read all the extras, realizing that they are more like deleted or expanded scenes on a DVD. And in the case of an epilogue, you really do get a glimpse of the true finish of a story, you get to see where they are now that all in the story is said and done. I think from here on out I will be at least reading the prologues and epilogues, but I will probably gauge whether or not to read the other extras on how much I want to know about the book as well as how long the parts are.


But I am really curious to know, do you read these parts of the book?