2a. I share your dismay at the footnote that GAVE AWAY THE ENDING??!? I mean, maybe it was a scholarly edition or something so they assumed that anyone buying it would have read it already? But still! Have some thought for the first-time reader!
I always skip the introductions to books in case they give away the ending.
2b. Some people (my mom, for example) find explanatory footnotes really helpful, so I don't begrudge them, but I prefer no footnotes 99.9% of the time (books where the footnotes are part of the author's text are an obvious exception). I don't like to have someone elbowing me at every turn, like the fairy in Ocarina of Time, to tell me that a barouche is a vehicle or whatever else they think I don't know/can't figure out from context/have no possible way of looking up in this benighted Dark Age of information access.
no subject
2a. I share your dismay at the footnote that GAVE AWAY THE ENDING??!? I mean, maybe it was a scholarly edition or something so they assumed that anyone buying it would have read it already? But still! Have some thought for the first-time reader!
I always skip the introductions to books in case they give away the ending.
2b. Some people (my mom, for example) find explanatory footnotes really helpful, so I don't begrudge them, but I prefer no footnotes 99.9% of the time (books where the footnotes are part of the author's text are an obvious exception). I don't like to have someone elbowing me at every turn, like the fairy in Ocarina of Time, to tell me that a barouche is a vehicle or whatever else they think I don't know/can't figure out from context/have no possible way of looking up in this benighted Dark Age of information access.
3. It's as good a place to work as any!