Just googled this and I'm sure there's a way somewhere, but if you want to read just the attributes and not the geometry for features, e.g. to query/review just the attributes, a 'table only' option could be useful to reduce read times where you have a large number of features. Admittedly I'm not certain how much overhead geometry actually puts onto the reader!
Seems like this might have occurred to someone earlier, so if it's old hat then that's all good!