I really don't understand this article's high tendency to slip in tangents that have little to do - long sentences enclosed by brackets, or worse, hyphens which made side stories hard to distinguish from main story. Those things have so little to do with the actual subject of review and serve little purpose. Perhaps they're there to show off the author's knowledge on the subject matter?

Perhaps I'm too used to engineering style writing which just cuts to the chase. Is it common for book reviews to include those bloats?

If you get physical copies it's truely alarming how fast they stack up. I like reading them but feel shame at the height of the pile yet to tackle.

My protocol to deal with it is as follows:

A. After the letters, I only read front-to-back, so I don't waste time skipping back and forth. (Exceptions made for authors I really like.)

B. I skip a lot, and I'm willing to stop reading any article at point, even several pages in.

C. I pass them on to my neighbor, which helps me not feel guilty for B.