Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
If those figures are accurate, it does sound as if you're a slow reader (and that's absolutely not a bad thing, let me hasten to add!). 2.5h a day is 17.5h a week. If we consider that an average novel can be read out loud (ie as an audiobook) in about 10h, the fact that you're not reading a book a week in 17.5h suggests that you're reading considerably more slowly than you'd read a book aloud. Vocalising a book generally slows down reading, but in your case perhaps it might speed it up?
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Thanks for being gentle Harry!
But no, I think perhaps the problem is that people simply have different ideas about what
reading a book entails. For some, I begin to perceive that "reading a book" may simply mean "getting through all the words in it." That's just not my mindset.
I stop a lot and "chew" on things I've just read. I'm not going to go as far as to say I'm
studying my fiction, but... well-crafted sentences do entice me. For that reason, I sometimes I read the ones that catch my fancy several times. Sometimes I put the book down and think about what I just read for a bit. Often I flip back to see if some plot-point I just read was foreshadowed earlier. "Did that character speak so plainly about his/her plans in the previous chapter? Maybe I better check." I even actively slow my pace down when I catch myself taking in whole sentences at a stride, because I feel I'm short-changing the experience when I do so. Getting "done" isn't my primary goal--weird as that may sound.
So while I would never presume to think mine is the "right way" and others are doing it "wrong," it's just that sometimes it's easy for me to forget that everybody might not do things the same way I do. Even with something as simple as just "reading a book."
Perhaps the explanation is as simple as that. Perhaps people who read 60, 100 or more books per year are enjoying a different activity than I am, and we're just calling it the same thing.
