I have a tower of books taller than I am in the pipeline, and I would like to be able to get through them before I die without skimming.
I am a slow reader but would like to change that, but have found that there is no way without skimming which misses too much.
I have considered chemical enhancements but these could only be short term.
Any suggestions?
Why the hurry to read everything? I don't know what type of literature you are referring to but good books normally stay available for years and there is no need to collect them en masse. I'm guessing from your user name that you are relatively young and in the normal course of events you will have time to read what you want to.Originally Posted by Brad Panic
Also, there is sometimes a tendency to identify with writing that, with the passage of time, experience teaches one to have been of little account . As a young reader, I was very much into political writing and wasted a lot of time reading stuff that would have been better spent on more literary works.
I found a good way to regulate my reading was to draw up lists of the books that interested me and tick them off individually. I still have some of the lists and am surprised at the amount of books that it's possible to read without resorting to speed reading or any other enhanced reading method that might be fashionable at any given time.
Last edited by Emil Miller; 05-25-2012 at 04:26 AM.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
I think a lot of people can relate to the "buying rather than reading" thing. Obviously, one would do well to buy the book one wants to read the day before beginning to read it--but we'd of course have to wait for it to arrive from the internet seller, or have to track it down for a good price in a bookstore, or used shop. Actually, used shops can really present some difficult to turn-away-from situations... Still, when possible, it might be a good idea to just write down the author name and title of books that look interesting, especially if they aren't super-reduced in price. And buy the actual candidates for reading (maybe the to-read pile shouldn't be more than 3 or five or seven...)
Beyond that, maybe some technique to get excited about books that have been purchased already for a while might help. Sometimes, I think people just want to read something they've just recently bought, or recently heard about--and that can make it hard to catch up on the stuff bought earlier on, right?
I think that, in a lot of cases, people just need to buy stuff they want to read--which is different from "stuff they would like to have read..." Maybe reading some short and relatively weightless but entertaining titles can help one build up some momentum, and eventually make the denser stuff easier to get through.
After moving around a bit (even abroad), I ended up having to get rid of books, even a few unread, and make choices. What can go in my suitcase? After a while of that, the habit of reading stuff eventually became a lot easier for me. It only makes sense, after all. And it's fun to raise the stakes a little bit--when shopping for a book, I really AM getting something that I will read soon... It won't be just some thing on the shelf. And that's a little more exciting, even if it means I have to go without some stuff on sale, or write down a few titles in a notebook, or bookmark them on my web browser (rather than buy them).
I find that a good way of regulating the size of my "to read" pile is to use a library. For a start you don't have to pay anything and then, when you've finished one book, you can take it back and swap it for a new one. True, I do sometimes still end up with a pile of books, but as the number you can have at once is limited, it should never become unmanageable. The library is also a good way of experimenting, trialling authors that you may never have read before without wasting any money. If you enjoy a book enough that you want to read it again then you can by yourself a cheap copy of it on amazon, or simply get it out from the library again.
"Mere flim-flam stories, and nothing but shams and lies." - Sancho Panza, in Don Quixote, pt. 1, bk. 3, ch. 11 (1605)
You have two interesting signature messages. The Hal Holbrook one echoes feelings many people are having about political correctness or at least the use that is being made of it.
The second I think means that statistics enable us to make wrong conclusions from correct figures.
this reminds me that having too large a to-read pile is kind of like greed or indecision since it means one hopes to still keep one foot in the door of another subject and not close it forever and pick one world to live in.
I was really proud to have read Don Quixote, perhaps one of the most profound books of all.
...What kind of "chemical enhancements?" All that comes to mind is caffeine.
I have the opposite problem. Books are expensive, and my town doesn't have a proper library.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
college students are using modafinil and other ADD medicines.
you can get some good books for $1.00 USD on the internet from abebooks.
You can also download a lot of books free in pdf form on the internet.
To get more reading in, the easiest would be spend more time reading. I don't know whether you actually already read at your kind of 'maximum'.
On the other hand, maybe you are an extremely slow reader and that of course does not help matters. There are courses to amend this 'problem'. I am thinking of taking one. A test I took the other day came out with 184 words per minute in English and a sad 154 in Dutch (mother tongue) and in German. The average is more or less 200 per minute and many peope reading more, depending on their profession. To be fair, average comprehension is at about 60% whereas mine is nearly 100% (92%), but at that speed I am not surprised that I struggled reading for uni to the point that I got depressed.
I don't know whether it is much to do with my bad eyesight or not, but I don't see a huge difference with before.
Last edited by kiki1982; 05-25-2012 at 11:29 AM.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Try using speed reading techniques on book you have alredy read. Most likely it will increase your average speed, leaving comprehension % intact when you read "slow".
I have the same problem, although the format can greatly affect my speed. A novel with dramatic, romantic, or poetic dialogue and heavily detailed landscapes slows me down A LOT. In those cases I see the story like a movie, so to read any faster would be like watching/hearing it in fast forward--doesn't work for me. I can speed read newspapers but almost nothing else. I've increased my rate a little using various techniques with mixed results. Yeah it sucks sometimes...
slllllllooooooowwwwww down. The more you try to speed read and cram more books the less you will enjoy the books. Great books are meant to inspire reflection: you should be able to sit there thinking about the book you are reading, not rushing to get it down so you can get the next one done. I have mentioned this elsewhere: there is a bizarre pressure to "have read" a book, so much so that reading it doesn't matter. I am not above all this, I admit. In spending time on this forum or in discussion with people, I am always picking up new books and have to get them right away. My pile grows and I have to remind myself that I have an entire lifetime to read and I am not in competition with anyone.
I wrote a poem on a leaf and it blew away...
I wholeheartedly concur! I too have always been an abysmally slow reader, but in retrospect I think that's been more of a boon than a bane, as it's enabled me to savor every word. On those rare occasions when I've managed to pick up the pace, I've found that my retention and comprehension diminish in direct proportion to any increase in speed. Of course, if it happens to be a lousy book...
I find that I read very fast and do not think about how many books I am "conquering" when I love what I am reading. I tend to think about how many books I am reading when I "force feed" some literature that I feel I have to 'tick the box' - some classics.
I prefer hardcover full size books because the print is larger and there is more space between lines. This eliminates pocketbooks and a lot of the Penguin books. Some of the best books to read are the book club editions like Heritage Press.
I have found that I lately, not just often but almost always have to re-read a sentence or paragraph twice to really get the meaning.
I have found one condition that remedies this, but it is kind of naughty so I won't mention it here.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
