My wife and I have been reading classic literature this year. She finished Jane Eyre last week before starting Great Expectations, and I tackled Out of Africa and Old Man and the Sea before moving to Robinson Crusoe. We both agree: it’s inspiring stuff—and much better than junk food reading.

We also agree that those wordy, overblown, or otherwise melodramatic introductions by semi-popular modern authors are lame. I understand it’s a marketing ploy to sell more re-released books, and you can always skip ’em. But they get in the way of great literature. I have yet to read an author introduction that I enjoyed. Let me get to the book already, or at least call the thing an “author retrospective” and put it in the back of the book.

Dumb.