Do you read songs/poems that are inserted into a book (novel)?

[Cat_Whisperer]

I’ve only read “Lord of the Rings” once, and I skipped almost all of the songs. I ended up skipping a lot of his incredibly long-winded descriptions of every leaf on every tree in the forest, too.

[OpalCat]

@asterion

Well, in the case of Tolkien, there were actually records of J.R.R. Tolkien reading/singing his own works. My parents have some on vinyl (who knows how long its been since anyone listened to them.) Things like this and this. Having never heard any of these, I cannot comment on the actual content.

Interesting… do we know if he wrote the melodies himself?

[leftfield6]

Read them? No, with one exception. I have read the LOTR multiple times, and skipped the poems/songs every time.

Currently reading the Fire and Ice books, skip the songs in there as well.

I’ve also listened to the audiobooks for LOTR multiple times, and I do enjoy the songs there. Rob Inglis does a remarkable job at the voices, and even makes the songs bearable, although some of them go on and on and on.

My one author that I do read the songs has been Patrick O’Brian. The songs in the Aubrey-Maturin series are usually not so long, and often funny/ribald.