Hoot!
We all live in our own little pocket realities. Before this thread I never even realized this was a thing.
Yeah, it reminds me of the thread about standing up vs. sitting down when wiping.
With novels, it just seems like it would be common sense. In a bookstore, it’s right there to pick up and read. It only takes a minute or two to read a couple pages. Same online: booksellers make it easy to read the first pages. And this is what you will read as soon as you buy it anyway—it’s not like reading a random section of the book (that is the one I find weird).
Do the people who don’t read any first (again, talking about a full price hardback or ebook and assuming you don’t have money to burn) also not test drive a car before buying it? Do you not try on clothes?
My clothes tend to come wrapped in plastic from stores with “mart” in their names.
I usually don’t try on clothes… I mean, I know my measurements, I know what I like in clothes, what’s there to try on? Of course, if I’m being fitted for a suit I try it on, get measured, and have the tailor make adjustments, but for a pair of jeans or my standard white oxford shirts? Why bother?
Because sizes vary between brands, and fit is not reducible to a number or two.
Huh. My clothes are measured in “inches”, a unit of measurement gaining popularity here in the States.
Like my jeans - 34 inches around, 32 inches in length. Every one the same. No need to try them on because they’re all the same size! Bizarre, huh?
I used to read a few pages of a new book in the bookstore aisle. It was my comfortable routine browsing in bookstores. I would spend an hour in the store and maybe buy two books.
I just read the jacket summary on Amazon and scan the reviews. Just not the same as a cozy bookstore.
You really think every pair of 34/32 jeans, in every brand and style, has the same shape and fits the same? Seriously?
If you’re buying a duplicate of an item of clothing you already own (same brand, same size), that’s not what I’m talking about here.
Oddly enough, people buy things differently than you do.
Sounds like your wife is a smart lady. Although it’s impressive that you remember something you posted over a decade ago.
I purchased one of my Jeep Wranglers (new) without a test drive. The salesman brought the car to my business, I signed papers, and he drove my old Jeep Wrangler trade back.
I don’t try on most clothes, including shoes. That said, if my shoes are a tad too small or big I just wear them and suffer in silence. For jeans I reorder the same ones via Amazon when I need them.
I’m with you, JohnT. It would no more occur to me to try on clothes before I buy them, than to try putting windshield wiper blades on my car before I buy those. I know what size my car takes, and I buy the ones that say they’re that size. They’ve never turned out not to be that size, but if they did, I would assume either the wiper blades or the packaging were defective, and I would complain.
Based on their clothes-purchasing habits, I’ll take the risk of guessing that JohnT and Thudlow are both male.
Do I win a no-prize?
Duly noted. 
Yup - at least for me. And, just FYI, you also posted to the thread I quoted. 
This sounds like it might be worth a poll to know what % of the reading population falls into both camps.
So if we summarize the two camps thus far:
- The “must test drive before you buy” camp, that uses covers, author, genre, and reading the first few pages to decide what they should buy.
and
- The “eh, whatever” camp, that buys things with more limited selection criteria, but not reading any pages, and typically with far fewer criteria than the first camp.
Some subset of the folk in 2, and I’m in this group too, chew through such prodigious volumes of books that they can afford to take more “risks” on what they choose to get, because it’s not a huge time investment anyways.
Some of the other folk in 2 are happy to act with more limited criteria simply because they are such dashing risk-takers, so full of vim and derring-do that they dare to tread that perilous ground of not-completely-vetted books. 
Some of these dashing risk takers’ selection traits overlap into other things like pants-buying and vehicle purchasing.
Are we missing anyone so far?
Yeah, I follow myself around a lot!
Yeah.
And, to be sure, I think the tryer-on-ers may be more sensible than I (I say, as I sit here in pants that are a little bit snugger than others of their size). It’s just that I don’t like trying on clothes, it’s not something I’m in the habit of doing; and many of my clothes are bought online or, like Darren Garrison, “wrapped in plastic from stores with ‘mart’ in their names.”
At least reading the first few pages of a book before you buy it doesn’t require taking off one’s pants in a public place.
Ha, that was you too! I should have known.
Looks good, as long as we stipulate that we’re limiting the scope to purchases that one cannot afford more than once a week at most. If, because someone is wealthy or the books are cheap, they can easily afford to buy several per week, it’s a whole different dynamic.