I haven’t blogged much this week, or written much, or done much of anything truly productive. But I did read. Over at the Blog Gate (as James Enge calls it) this week I wrote about just that very subject — how to read more books. Last week you’ll no doubt recall the superhero who read 462 books in one year, well, this week’s post is about how the rest of us mere mortals can come to grips with the reading bear and squeeze its burly, bushy body into a tutu and make it dance for us.
But this kind of faster reading is only part of the solution to reading more books a year. Since speedreading emphasizes information assimilation, is is better suited to only certain kinds of material — the things you want to know, but not necessarily experience. Sometimes this may be fiction of a certain kind, more often it will be non-fiction, but what it most certainly won’t be is a complex novel from a challenging author, or rhythmic verse, or even that big fat fantasy you want to curl up with while the world gets on without you. While I do think speedreading is a great way to increase even your comfortable reading speed, it is not supposed to be the one tool for all tasks.
Of course, I’m not an actual expert at anything speedreading related, I’m just a monomaniacal autodidact. With a blog. But I have bootstrapped my reading rate up considerably in the last decade, and my theory as to how you can do that, too, is laid out in glorious, discursive detail over at BG.
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I read that whole post and have been reading them all. It’s quite interesting. I posted on it myself and have made a spreadsheet of books I’m reading and have read, as well as ones I want to read.
Your point about reading more doesn’t mean reading faster is a good one. I’m a phonetic reader, and given I read a lot of Marxist stuff, the density makes it hard to skim or swallow text. Whereas, my time on the web shows me I can read in gulps I want to – or if the text allows for it.
I’m curious to try and push myself.
Great post Bill, again. I’m looking forward to pushing my speed up and consuming more text in 2009.
Thanks,
NGD
Great post.
I’d be interested to hear opinions from an ergonomic point of view, too, things like the book’s typeface, size, your posture while reading, etc. It may sound pedantic, but I had a few large-print books when I was younger and I swear I was able to read them faster (and with better comprehension) than I would have otherwise.
Thanks guys.
Benjamin, I understand completely — I can’t see anyone speedreading Das Kapital.
Dave, good luck with it, and I’m glad you’ve drawn a little inspiration from my posts.
Nathan, an interesting aspect of reading I hadn’t covered. I agree about larger typefacing being easier to assimilate. I hadn’t thought much about posture. I generally go for what’s comfortable, however I have noticed that an upright posture at a desk is great for concentration, as it doesn’t let you get too comfortable.
Bill, with all due respect, what’s the point?
I read for enjoyment; as you said, for the experience. if I have, let’s say, five hundred hours a year to read and I enjoy every minute of it, what difference does it make if I read one hundred books or two hundred?
Two generous cuts of prime beef, properly seared and seasoned, and eaten in the same time as I might spend eating one, aren’t twice as good. In fact, there is reason to suggest that the experience is lessened.
Just my dime’s worth.
Well, I think the experience can be lessened, but, as the Russians proved in WWII, quantity can have a quality all its own. There are a lot of things I read quickly that I wouldn’t want to labor over, but that I still enjoy, and there are things I read quickly for information, where enjoyment isn’t the primary purpose.
I think having a strong idea of what exactly you want out of a given book is the key to determining how you’ll read it. I can understand that it isn’t something everybody will, or should, worry about — but if part of your enjoyment of books comes from dipping your toe in a lot of different ponds, I think a bit of speed here and there really helps. But I’d never suggest everyone should be speedreading, or only caring about the number of books they read, the process and experience of reading itself demands to be respected as well.
(and thank’s for blogging about my posts, Benjamin, I forgot to say earlier)
Interesting rebuttal K.C. I’d say that quantity matters more when you are a writer, or in fact any sort of artist that draws on fiction in order to express himself. It is true as a diner that two steaks aren’t better than one, but not so if you are a chef. You should be sampling steaks of many kinds before you set out to make your own.
Now I’m hungry.
Nathan:
I am a writer. I haven’t made the big markets yet, but my work has been published, print and internet, and I’m hoping for my first top-market sale this year.
I read some fiction for entertainment and some to help hone my craft, and when I’m reading someone that I admire, some one I would like to emulate, I tend to slow down and study what it is they’re doing that attracts me.
And I believe that the chef who overeats, and many of them do, is simply desensitizing her taste buds.
Hi KC, I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t.
And I’ve no beef with the slowing down bit; indeed, when reading the words of a writer who inhabits a large part of my mental constellation, I’ll often read several times slower than I would otherwise. This is coming from somebody who doesn’t read very fast in the first place.
But I still maintain that it’s good to run lots of laps, if nothing but to lessen the probability that you are doing something that has already been done many times.
I suppose if you have a vision that is strikingly original, there’s an argument for honing your reading so as not to dilute your own very singular perspective.
But my experience has been that the best draw from a wide variety of sources, and few writers are as original as they seem at first.