How is that (extreme reading) even possible??

[krishna_lit]

I remember reading a post some months ago on the internet; it's a blog where in the owner of that blog writes reviews of the books he read. That's fine, but what stopped me short was that he said he usually reads somewhere between 300 to 500 books a year... I was astonished (and kinda abashed too, sadly) by learning that.. I was wondering how such a thing is even possible in the busy life like today's?

I mean, if you are a paycheck to paycheck guy, then you would spend most of your time finding better jobs or doing more than one or two jobs a day and won't be left with time, and the second case is if you are a high earning guy with a great job, then again you obviously won't have time because that high paying job will be surely consuming most of your life... I mean, c'mon how can somebody read 500 books a year, that's more than one book a day...

Please kindly share your views and experiences if any, regarding this kind of incidents.

[JBI]

When I was in high school I was reading something like 500 pages a day, no exaggeration. I haven't watched TV since I was about 12, so that could explain it. Just take out the time you spend watching movies and TV and exchange it for reading, and you'll have the answer.

Right now I am at about 200-300 Chinese pages a day, as course work and as pleasure. That being said, I can go through 200 pages of a Buddhist sutra in about 1 hour, as the texts are usually formulaic. A 100 page poetry book takes 1 hour on a first read.

Now, if you want to really read something, read it every day once for two weeks. That's the only way to really start to enter inside a specific poem. Memorizing it and thinking of it on the bus helps. I used to keep a copy of Eliot's Four Quartets in my jacket pocket, and read it 2 times a day - for about 2 to 3 months - and really began to understand it only after the first month.

I guess everyone has different preoccupations. If I did not need to cook every day, I could easily read 2x as much.

[Hal]

I remember reading a post some months ago on the internet; it's a blog where in the owner of that blog writes reviews of the books he read. That's fine, but what stopped me short was that he said he usually reads somewhere between 300 to 500 books a year... I was astonished (and kinda abashed too, sadly) by learning that.. I was wondering how such a thing is even possible in the busy life like today's?

I mean, if you are a paycheck to paycheck guy, then you would spend most of your time finding better jobs or doing more than one or two jobs a day and won't be left with time, and the second case is if you are a high earning guy with a great job, then again you obviously won't have time because that high paying job will be surely consuming most of your life... I mean, c'mon how can somebody read 500 books a year, that's more than one book a day...

Please kindly share your views and experiences if any, regarding this kind of incidents.

Well 300 a year would be 25 books a month. That's a book every 1.2 days.

So unless he makes a living from this blog I am skeptical. Also it depends on the kind of books. If he's reading non-fiction or genre fiction (types of books that don't require a close reading) then I'm less skeptical.

[Jack of Hearts]

One hour in a book of poetry is doing it wrong.

It's extremely doable, by the way. A Michael Chabon novel can be cleared in 4 hours, for instance. Not literary enough? Blood Meridian can be done in about that time, too. And that's not to mention young adult novels-- this reader slayed The Fault in Our Stars yesterday morning between breakfast and brunch, lack of interest notwithstanding.

Quit squandering yer time on TV and internet, and there's your 4-6 hours a day, and there's your 300 books a year (keeping in mind that books are, in fact, portable, and can be read on lunch breaks or in between classes. How do you think this reader carried 18 units, a part time job and still read the collected works of Emerson and had time to enjoy Carl Sandburg's poetry. (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?70494-Honey-and-Salt) That's not to mention all the dual-language Pablo Neruda (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?66389-Cien-sonetos-de-amor) and Baudelaire in the original French.)

The most time consuming part of reading a fairly standard work (barring something like Finnegans Wake or Infinite Jest) is going to be reflection. Specifically because it is endless, and the threshold to having intellectual grasp/competency over a work is subjective.

All of this, of course, drawn from experience. Jack of Hearts' intelligence is famously, famously average. And many people out there are doing it harder, and deeper, and better than he ever could.

It's an interest/priorities thing.






J

[loe]

The most time consuming part of reading a fairly standard work (barring something like Finnegans Wake or Infinite Jest) is going to be reflection.
And my suspicion is that people who (only) read books for writing reviews skip this time of reflection. I know one example of such a blog writer who is more interested in (fore)judging the books (and everything else in life) than in really understanding them...

And I also think it is not fair but there are people in this world who have enough time for reading because they don't need to go to work for making a living. ;)
(Unfortunately, I'm not such a person...)

[MorpheusSandman]

It's doable with a combination of these things:

-speed reading
-short books
-plenty of free-time

I can speed read, especially when it comes to "easy" writers or non-fiction whose subjects I'm familiar with. I can do about 800 words-per-minute comfortably with excellent retention. If I'm reading something difficult (Joyce, much modern poetry) I have to slow down. Shorter books can obviously be read relatively quickly. When I was a kid I loved Goosebumps and Animorphs, and I used to read one of each a day because they were usually only a little over 100 pages. Free time is also obvious. I know one bibliophile who's on disability and home bound. He has no other interests, so he reads something like 500+ pages every day. I usually manage at least 100 pages a day, but when I get really interested in something I can do 300+. So it's doable, certainly.

[mona amon]

As Morpheus says, it's possible if you read really fast and don't do much else, but is it desirable? Unless you are a scholar or someone whose profession is closely connected to reading, I feel you'll be better off spending time with people or exercising or doing other less passive leisure time activities.

[JBI]

1 hour a poetry book is totally reasonable. Most are 50-100 pages with one poem a page. which is not long at all. Better to reread than to take 10 hours. The general gist 3 times is better than the whole thing once. Most good books take repetetive interaction at intervals to enter, especially poetry. I don't think anybody can "get" T. S. Eliot, for instance, the first time.

[MorpheusSandman]

but is it desirable? Well, one could always argue it's better to try and balance your life, but I'm a big believer in following your passion, and if you love reading more than anything else, then I don't see why not doing it, though it's always advisable to exercise and be physically healthy. Personally, my passion for music and film is equal to my passion for literature, so I simply can't read that much.

[MorpheusSandman]

1 hour a poetry book is totally reasonable. Most are 50-100 pages with one poem a page. which is not long at all. Better to reread than to take 10 hours. The general gist 3 times is better than the whole thing once. Most good books take repetetive interaction at intervals to enter, especially poetry. I don't think anybody can "get" T. S. Eliot, for instance, the first time.Yeah, this is a good point. In speed reading one thing that's stressed is that the best way to learn is to get the gist the first time and go back and fill in the details as/when necessary. However, I find it hard to read poetry quickly, not because I want to grasp every nuance/meaning, but because I think savoring the language/words as an aesthetic affect is a major part of poetry's appeal, and you can't savor when you read so quickly.

[JBI]

Yeah, this is a good point. In speed reading one thing that's stressed is that the best way to learn is to get the gist the first time and go back and fill in the details as/when necessary. However, I find it hard to read poetry quickly, not because I want to grasp every nuance/meaning, but because I think savoring the language/words as an aesthetic affect is a major part of poetry's appeal, and you can't savor when you read so quickly.

This isn't speed reading, it just isn't analytical reading, in the sense of sentence by sentence with the OED in one hand and 20 books of criticism in the other.

When you read a poem seriously, you can do many things. Me, my training is first to mark tone/stress (in Chinese, I scan every line when I close read, and compare it to a diagram or "form") then you look for images, and you make a list - usually this is done by underlining or highlighting, or putting quotes around the said words or characters. "willow" "stream" "mountain" etc. Then you look for connections and parallelism I do this by writing in the margin in Chinese, as Chinese poems generally employ parallel structures which are set out in a pattern. In English I would look for any number of schemes. Once that is done, you start comparing. Looking for repeated synonyms is a good way to start. also you may wish to list verbs is an order - look, walk, hold, build, etc. - these will give you the flow of thought in an action dominated poem - for instance, a ballad, or in Chinese poetry anything that has to do with visual "perspective".

That is close reading at the anal level - and I reserve this method for poems I wish to know this intimately, whether by their reputation, or by their ability to stick in my mind before I actually dissect them. Close reading to me, at this anal level, is more of a "how is it doing this" than a "what is it doing". If the poem does not pop out at me right away with something I haven't really encountered before, or with a powerful couplet or something, I will usually just shelve it.

Now, for works that I intend to use in my research, I catalog everything by author, images, topic, time period, genre, format, etc. Then I can just flip through a database with key words - 5 character line poems on the sorrows of separation during the middle Tang Period - I could pull any key word in a database and get the grounds for a large essay on the subject. Or I could search a database of all poems discussing "willows" or "eagles" or any other number of ideas.

I think though a discussion between "research" and casual reading. For an enjoyment of a poem, a quick read will generally give you the majority of it. You don't really need to database everything you read, or even bother to read everything you don't like. If you are reading a book of poems and one poem isn't doing it for you, you probably should skip it. No artist is perfect 100% of the time, especially for poets (except for Yeats whose later poems are almost all good).

Now, if you read a book at 100 pages an hour, that is a quick, but reasonable rate (for somebody who reads at a fairly quick pace naturally). If you read at 200 an hour, that is an obscene speed, unless you are rereading constantly, or one of those freaks of nature who have the god-like ability to speed read with full retention (such as Harold Bloom, if the claim is true). Generally the good lines and things in a book will stick in your head. A couplet will enter memory, a paragraph stand out at you, etc.

[cacian]

extreme is extreme. why do you wish to engage in such style? the way to read is to do it peacefully and preferably not whilst going to sleep. it may conjur up nightmares especially if the book is unusual in concept.

[MorpheusSandman]

JBI, I simply meant that when you're learning speed reading, one thing they stress is the important of getting the "gist" at first, and then rereading to fill in the details. I was merely talking about reading for pleasure, not close reading analysis, which is a different thing entirely; I've done this close reading as well on many poems before. I generally use the various strategies that Helen Vendler outlines in her textbook, but one thing she mentions is starting with what interests you in a given poem--whether it's an image, metaphor, a temporal/spatial cue, a grammatical form, etc.--and then working from there. However, when it comes to reading poetry for pleasure, I still enjoy the aesthetic affect of savoring the words and language. I agree that not every poem (even most poems) are worth the time/effort to close read, but even with relatively mediocre poems I find I enjoy them more if I linger on the language a bit longer, sometimes not even worrying about the meaning or "gist" of it.

[mal4mac]

I like Woody Allen's take on speed-reading War & Peace in a sitting. When bragging about his speed reading ability, when pressed on what it was about, he said, "Russia".

I agree with Cacian, reading should be a pleasant, peaceful experience. If you get pleasure out of it, which you can do reading at normal speeds, why would you want anything more? To put pressure on yourself by saying "I must read a novel a day", or whatever, is to make the experience less pleasant.

Arnold Bennett was once asked how he could review so many novels, and he replied that because he was an expert, he didn't have to read much of them. He could soon tell if they were trash or not. My guess is that most reviewers are like that, they only read a few pages, but don't have the guts to admit it.

I doubt Harold Bloom's claim is true, as regards the actual physical reading of every word. I think he was yanking the chains of speed-reading geeks. I wonder if they are all out there trying to match his speeds? Being a bit of a geek, in other ways, I once compared his claimed speeds to limits reported in the psychology literature, and just couldn't believe them. He re-reads a lot, so maybe he flicks through a much loved book, looks at headings, and instantly recalls the story. That's the only explanation I can think of for his claimed speeds. He also says that reading speed isn't important. Whatever speed you read, you will only be able to read a very small fraction of the literature that is out there. Surely the point is to enjoy your reading, not read as much as possible?

[MorpheusSandman]

Yeah, I remember that Allen quote. It's funny. However, there are a lot of misconceptions about what speed reading actually is. Most who know nothing about it thinks it's no different than skimming, or that it's this frantic, hectic, non-peaceful, unpleasurable way to read. However, when you actually start learning to do it, you realize that all of those misconceptions are just that, misconceptions.

Speed reading isn't about reading as fast as possibly no matter what, it's about reading as fast as possible in a way that's comfortable and allows you to retain what you're reading. As the author of Breakthrough Rapid Reading said, speed reading should really be called variable reading, because different texts require/allow for different reading speeds. I do not read Joyce at the same speed I read, say, a poetry textbook. I'm very familiar with the latter, and textbooks are written for clarity, so I can read/comprehend them much easier at faster speeds. Joyce is the opposite of that, so you have to slow to a crawl. What's more, as I said with poetry, when part of the draw is experiencing language as an aesthetic object, then you have to slow down as well.

Speed reading is actually quite simple though. Firstly, you learn to take in blocks of texts at one glance, and learn how to move your eyes smoothly across a page rather than like a jumpy, jerky typewriter. This means you can often, eg, read a sentence in one glance rather than word-by-word. You get the same level of understanding and comprehension, if not more because you're taking in meanings by chunks rather than pieces. Second, you learn to comprehend structures better. IE, you learn how paragraphs are arranged usually via an introductory sentence and then follow-up sentences that develop that initial sentence. This allows you to, as I said earlier, grasp the "gist" of a text, and then fill in the details later.

Finally, it's about learning to adjust your speeds based on what you're reading, and understanding what you want to get out of the text. If you're just reading for pleasure, then obviously you just want to read at what speed you're comfortable with and that you get the most pleasure from; but what makes you think that "normal" reading is more pleasurable than "speed reading?" Since learning to speed read, I can't stand to go back to "normal reading" for anything except poetry or highly poetic prose. Reading plain prose at "normal speed" would be mind-numbing to me.

Seriously, just try this with my post (or any post in this thread): try to take in a sentence at a time, or, if the sentence is long, take it in to the point of a comma or some other punctuation mark. One easy way to do this is to read the first few words and then flick your eyes quickly to the last word in the "chunk." The thing is, your eyes can pick up the word and send them to your brain faster than you can "say" them either out loud or in your head. If you cut down on saying every word in your head, then you'll also speed up your reading. You don't have to mentally "say" every "the, and, or, if, etc." to get the meaning.

[krishna_lit]

Whatever speed you read, you will only be able to read a very small fraction of the literature that is out there.

Nailed it! :D

[JBI]

I like Woody Allen's take on speed-reading War & Peace in a sitting. When bragging about his speed reading ability, when pressed on what it was about, he said, "Russia".

I agree with Cacian, reading should be a pleasant, peaceful experience. If you get pleasure out of it, which you can do reading at normal speeds, why would you want anything more? To put pressure on yourself by saying "I must read a novel a day", or whatever, is to make the experience less pleasant.

Arnold Bennett was once asked how he could review so many novels, and he replied that because he was an expert, he didn't have to read much of them. He could soon tell if they were trash or not. My guess is that most reviewers are like that, they only read a few pages, but don't have the guts to admit it.

I doubt Harold Bloom's claim is true, as regards the actual physical reading of every word. I think he was yanking the chains of speed-reading geeks. I wonder if they are all out there trying to match his speeds? Being a bit of a geek, in other ways, I once compared his claimed speeds to limits reported in the psychology literature, and just couldn't believe them. He re-reads a lot, so maybe he flicks through a much loved book, looks at headings, and instantly recalls the story. That's the only explanation I can think of for his claimed speeds. He also says that reading speed isn't important. Whatever speed you read, you will only be able to read a very small fraction of the literature that is out there. Surely the point is to enjoy your reading, not read as much as possible?

Once again, this isn't speed reading. Speed reading is to the point where you are skipping. I can easily go through 100 pages reading every single word in an hour. If it is a book like Cormac Mccarthy's the road, I can do 150 in an hour, since he has one sentence paragraphs and massive font.

This is not my point. My point was it is a reasonable amount. If you deal with novels, they are already an incredibly verbose and excessive form. Very few authors can work single-word power, the way someone like Flaubert can, where you can dwell on every word and "savor" every sentence. Even good literature is 80% filler. And when you are reviewing, you are not even necessarily reading good works. Chances are 90% of what you read is dismissible. It's logic for reviewers to not read books they don't like fully. Should a food critic eat a whole dish he does not like at all?


Seriously, some people on these boards are just unrealistic in their expectations, and somewhat evangelical about their reading, as if it is some sort of sacred ritual. Most of what people read is not interesting to them, and most is not even good. Simply put, I need to read through page upon page of crap day after day, not because I don't like the canon, but because much of literature is crap, even canonical works.

If you read that much, you will realize that life is not worth spending on "close reading" or "slow reading" or any other word you have for reading too slowly works that don't impress you.

Sorry to say this, but if people on these boards spent less time preaching about reading, and actually practicing what they preach we would probably have a better understanding on what it actually takes to read 500 pages a day.

As someone who has done that, I will tell you quite simply that by day 20 or so, you will probably not have the stomach to read novels, and certainly will not be wanting to slow read them. You will figure out quickly that all of Austen's novels are generally the same outline, as are all of Dickens' or whomevers, and that all novels are essentially the same book, and are not so interesting to begin with.

You will discover that despite a works canonical status, it actually doesn't do anything for you, and you cannot engage with it. You will find that certain authors should be read at a faster speed than others, and that reading a book without dissecting it is as pleasurable as "savoring it" or whatever jargon you can cook up.

At any rate, I would bet I have a better retention rate going at my speed of 100 an hour give or take, than many 25 pages an hour people. I would also wager that my contextualization, and my ability to dissect the work at my speed is far better than the majority of people. This is not even fast reading, it is reading at the pace my mind moves at, some people's voice in their head is quicker, and some people lack focus (like me before I drink a litre of tea).

As I said before 500 pages a day is a personal choice, and saying that people don't have time to enjoy the book or whatever is a load of rubbish. I think the silliest thing to be snobby about is "I read the book more slowly than you, therefore I enjoyed it more."

[Paulclem]

It's merely practice. My wife can easily read a novel in an evening. Her method is to run her eye down the page taking in each line. It is possible to do, but takes practice, and with practice comes increased absorption and awareness. My wife thinks it is nothing special and scoffs at my comments that few people read like this. That's because she has become so used to reading at this pace that it is normal for her. she reads like this all the time, and once told me that, with her grammar school education, she picked up one more mistake in a university proofreading exercise than the tutor. This demonstrates to me that she can close read very quickly too. She likes history and crime novels - as well as classic literature. (The other week she was complaining that the book she was reading was annoying. When I asked why she said she had to turn the pages too quickly as the font etc was probably too big).

I can speed read, but don't usually. I save it for work documents an marking learners' work.

[ennison]

Read less. Read slower. It's not an effin race. It's like a piper once said to me, "Why the hurry to finish a good tune"