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is [a cookie consent] required if users only read comments?

Maybe if you have Google Analytics (or something like that) installed in your Talkyard forum.

Talkyard only tries to remember the browser, if one tries to do something, like voting Like or Disagree, or posting a comment, or logs in. Sometimes also if searching for something (for rate limiting). (There's an XSRF cookie (for security) but it's session-only, disappears once the browser tabs are closed.)

do you track users if they only reed comments?

No. (Talkyard remembers for a while from what IP addresses people accesses the forum, for security and rate limiting purposes. But that's not cookies, instead, it's more related to GDPR.)

If the forum is private, so one needs to log in to read, then Talkyard stores authentication related cookies in one's browser.

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If you find any cookie banner script you like, feel free to post a link? Maybe some others would want to add one, they too (by adding for-their-forum custom Javascript & CSS I suppose).

Thank you, that's what I needed to know.
I'll try to implement Talkyard then, but yes, I'll probably need to get cookie consent before someone logs in to leave a comment.
I think it would be best to have it as a part of the login page/widget.
I'll share what I ended up doing after I'm done.