Whether I skip descriptive passages depends on how well they’re written, and how well they’re integrated into the story. Note that I didn’t say plot, as not every story is about plot. For truly great description it’s hard to beat Professor Tolkien, but instead I’ll mention the two opening chapters of The Big Sleep. Chapter One consists mostly of a description of the foyer of the Sternwood mansion; Chapter Two, for the first half a page, is entirely about the sights, smell, and tactile accidents of a greenhouse. Both descriptions are essential to setting the mood, and in addition, are so beautifully written the are like a glimpse of heaven.
I sometimes do this at the beginning of a book if the descriptive passages are too flowery or overlong. I think that some authors are ambitiously trying to impress you with their prose at the beginning, and that their writing actually improves, to my taste at least, when they stop trying so hard.
If I’m still wanting to skip passages in the middle of the book, it’s likely that I’ll set it aside without finishing it.
If the books you read have passages you skip, you’re reading the wrong books.
<fist bump> My man here speaks the truth.
Except songs. You can skip songs. Particularly songs in made-up languages.
Hee! I didn’t notice that.
And Skald, very much agree on The Big Sleep. That book is all about atmosphere and attitude.
Depends on the writer. A good writer will capture my attention - but there are so few of them. Most of the time I skip that.
I agree with Marley, it is very difficult to do and IMO harder to do well.
Funny you should mention Stephenson. What occasioned my OP in this thread was that I noticed I was skipping about half* of Anathem–yet I was still loving the book.
I dunno, all the minutiae just don’t do it for me. Maybe just knowing they’re there in case I ever did want to go find about about them is part of what lets me enjoy his novels, or something. But I don’t read ithem. I skim them, get the main idea (“yeahyeah, intricately and cleverly designed building, I get it”), then pay attention to what the people are doing in that setting. Like I said before, if anything from the setting is important to understand what the people are doing, it is usually quite easy to piece it together without having to go back and reread.
(Also, To be clear, as I said in the OP, I don’t skip all physical descriptions. I skip long descriptive passages.)
-FrL-
*Surely I exaggerate.
Will check it out.
-FrL-
Now Exapno’s going to get me for starting out claiming I skip, then in my post to him just saying I skim. 
So to clarify, I skip the passage, in the sense that I read few of its words and do not retain, even immediately, any detailed understanding of what is inside the passage. But I say I “skim” just in the sense that I do come away knowing the gist of what it’s describing and a couple of big summary adjectives. You can, IME, get these summary adjectives by alighting on just a phrase or two per ten lines or so. (I just ran a tiny experiment to get those numbers, but the methodology was probably suspect.)
-FrL-
It depends on the author, for instance with Betty Smith (A Tree Grows In Brooklyn) she is very good at writing descriptions and images.
Janet Evanovich is also good at writing, descriptive dialog. In fact Evanovich is often BETTER at it than the plot line.
On the other hand authors like Robin Cook (he writes medical thrillers) write descriptions very good when it comes to the medical part, but when he tries to write them for the relationship part of the stories, he can’t do it well.
So for me it depends on the author.
I like descriptive passages; they help build the scene in my imagination. I will skip song lyrics and poetry though.
I try to give the author the benefit of the doubt; if it’s in there, it’s probably in there for a good reason, and if it isn’t, then I’m probably wasting my time with the book anyway.
I actually love stories within stories as kind of a temporary detour from the beaten path.
But songs and poetry? Forget it, I always skip them. I must have a tin ear or something, because I can never find the meter for the songs, and with the exception of a few of Kipling’s poems, I hate reading poetry anywhere under any circumstances. I’ve always hated poetry.
I tend to skip action sequences. Might as well be shortened to something like “John and Larry fought. John won. Larry did NOT die.”
This is me on those rare occasions when I do read fiction.
Other than that, I can’t recall offhand any fiction with descriptive passages that I skipped. In nonfiction, I read it all, with one exception: when they give you a three-page condensed version of somebody’s biography starting 'way back in grammar school. They do this all the time in true-crime books, and frankly I don’t care what position the district attorney played on his high-school football team.
God, yes, I do this, and for me LOTR is the book/series that made it most clear to me that I do so as well. I sometimes feel guilty, but, then, that’s silly, isn’t it? I don’t owe anyone anything; I’ll spend my free time as I like.
(I used to feel more guilty about this, but then I read something that lampooned quite sharply authors’ need to insert just the sort of writing my eyes glaze right over, and thinking “Wow, I guess I’m not alone”. Alas, I can no longer remember what it was that inspired in me such pride.)
Alas, I do this too… I’m feeling that guilt ride back up.
It depends on the writer. There are some writers who do amazing things with the language, and reading long descriptive passages from them add a lot of flavor, humor, atmosphere, etc, to the book. Some writers fall flat though, in which case I’ll skim or doze off.
Funny you should say that about Stephenson. He’s one of the writers I never skim/skip – I love the way he constructs his language.
Expanding on this: if it’s a little detour with manifest wit and humor which I can expect to make it worth my while, then it’s not really the sort of thing I’m thinking about (I mention this because someone brought up Douglas Adams, and I don’t think of him as exemplifying what I’m thinking of, the way, e.g., Tolkien does). But if it’s sight-seeing/picture-painting for sight-seeing/picture-painting’s sake, then I’ll skip it; I find that a needlessly flowery chore, both to read and to write. As someone said above, “I seriously don’t care what color orange the sky or a dress is” (unless, of course, it’s important for some external reason).
If I wanted cinematography, I’d watch a movie. (I know, that’s a very churlish thing to say)
I tend to do this as well, or used to.
Then I read Robert Heinlein’s “Green Hills of Earth”, and well I guess Im a sap cause I ended up loving that song, since then I read all songs in books. Many are awful. (Tolkiens poems are pretty interesting though.)