As discussed in the first part of this essay, Ramp Up Your Reading: More and Faster, anyone who wants to take seriously the goal of getting more reading done needs to examine their priorities, track their reading, and employ whatever time-saving tricks they can think of to squeeze in some more book time between all that other life-stuff. But, just as quantity can have a quality all its own, the inverse is paradoxically also true. Reading better — that is reading with a higher degree of comprehension and retention — can also translate into reading more efficiently and quickly.
Speeding Up or Slowing Down?
Reading is a skill like any other, one that can be taught, practiced, perfected, and modified to suit the goals of the user. My last post discussed ways to read more books and get more reading done, but left out the use of Speed Reading to meet those goals for a very specific reason. While all that emphasis on quantitative reading can be a spur to getting more done, it can also force a sloppy approach that focuses on skimming books merely to get them down on the reading list. Becoming ‘numbers obsessed’ is a danger when a reader first starts to challenge themselves to read as much as they can, and the temptation can be to hurry up and just get the book done already — even at the expense of retention or even enjoyment.
But Speed Reading, scanning, and skimming are all legitimate weapons in the reader’s arsenal, the trick is in knowing how to deploy them. While the techniques of Speed Reading are too big a subject to go into in this post, the fundamental rule of approaching each book with a specific goal in mind is one that can revolutionize one’s reading. Is the book in question to be savored, or read quickly for content? Is it a reread? Is it read purely for pleasure, for knowledge, for the light it sheds on other books, or to satisfy some other personal goal? Determining if a book is to be Speed Read, studied, skimmed, or simply enjoyed at a natural pace is a crucial way to take control of your reading goals.
Ultimately, however, it is the quality of your reading that will determine just how wisely you’ve spent your time.
The Priorities of Reading
Is it better to read ten books in a superficial way, or engage deeply with five? The answer is not as obvious as it may seem — if those ten books are simple fare, then maintaining a brisk but enjoyable pace is better than trying to commit them to memory. Clearly, such things are based more on your goals as a reader than any hard and fast rules — perhaps those ’simple’ books are the sorts of things you yourself want to write one day, in which case you’ll read them slowly and analytically. For the expert on a subject, a new book in the field can be satisfyingly skimmed, whereas a novice must absorb the same work slowly. The tenth time you’ve reread your favorite book from childhood no doubt goes far quicker than the first, or even the fifth — yet your enjoyment is not diminished.
Speed is only important in reading as a factor of efficiency — to read faster is to read more, and to better use one’s time. Both fast and slow reading require serious concentration of a slightly different nature; fast reading is an effort to focus on the salient points of a book without letting your mind wander, whereas slow reading is more about retaining and processing both content and prose. Despite what some may claim, reading War and Peace in an afternoon, or the entirety of King Lear over lunch, is not a good thing. Even if we concede such feats may be possible and that the reader may actually retain the content of what they have read, they have missed the point of reading great fiction in the first place. Faster is not always better, and there are many books that are only enriching when fully experienced at a pace closer to the spoken word than the light-speed assimilation possible with Speed Reading.
Again, we come down to priorities. Is this a book you will read more than once? Does this book represent something new to you, or is it on a subject in which you are familiar? Challenging, complex, and novel books should be approached slowly and with deep concentration — to read them in a slapdash fashion is to waste one’s time. Easy books, rereads, and books on familiar topics can be and most often should be read at a faster clip — if for no other reason than to make time for more reading. Learning to decide between the various reading strategies for each book you encounter is the key to making sure what precious reading time you do have is utilized to the fullest.
The Completion Rule
Don’t read everything you start just because it gives a sense of completion, or another line on your list. The more one reads, and perhaps the older one gets, the less likely a reader is to do this. But, if ‘completion’ is one of your rules, abandon it now. Life is too short for bad books and, I firmly believe, it is even too short for good books you don’t want to read for whatever reason. Much better to put down a book with the intention of perhaps trying it again in a few years, than forcing yourself through it purely to say you have. You retain very little that way beyond a vague recollection of not enjoying the book, and all you have done is waste time that could have been spent with a book better suited to your needs of the moment.
Identifying your goals and priorities, being realistic about what you can accomplish, and resisting the urge to sacrifice retention and appreciation for speed, are crucial aspects of ensuring that you read well, and not just quickly. Learning to recognize just how each book should be read — or whether it should be read at all — is a discipline every bit as demanding as shoehorning those extra reading minutes out of your day. Reading is never solely about the book itself, but about what you intend to get out of it — whether it be a moment’s escape or the mastery of a new discipline, working to support your own personal goals is the key to getting the most out of your reading.
BILL WARD is a regular contributor to blogs such as BlackGate.com and Flash Fiction Chronicles. He is the review editor for Black Gate Magazine, and his own work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, as well as science fiction and fantasy tabletop game publications. He maintains a blog on all things genre at www.billwardwriter.com
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