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Hi All,
I wonder how much you read. I'm a bloody slow reader and I also suffer from a terrible time shortage. I saw a survey on Facebook asking how much the group members read and most people said they read 100-300 books a year. I. just. do. not. believe. that!
So I thought I would look up some stuff about speed reading in Google. There are courses, not as if I had any time to attend them. But you know the joke when Woody Allen said he's done a speed reading course and then read the War and Peace in one day. Conclusion: it involves Russia.
Well, I'm the same. I've tried speed reading at home and I managed to understand nothing from the book.
How are you with this?
Comments
I tend to read a book a fortnight on average I guess and I'm happy with that.
I read for a couple of hours a day - again on average. I believe some people spend as long as that watching TV.
Now, because (other people's) literature is my business, I read more than ever- but not in a disposable way. Speed reading is useful for the paper, or reports, but, if we're reading to become better writers, it's the difference between necking Frosty Jack's cider on a park bench and savouring a fine wine.
I find that, with serious or literary fiction, two readings are the minimum, to see under the bonnet.
But I agree wholly about the type of book, it definitely influences the way you write afterwards, although if I'm about to write a poem for a book called 'A Sea Creature Ate my Teacher' I read a lot of frivolous and funny poems. If for a book called 'Moon, Myths and Magic' I'd choose something deeper and lyrical.
I keep my "heavy" reading to home where I can eradicate all noise, curl up with a glass of wine or a mug of tea and indulge. I don't get as much time as I'd like for this, I guess I average about a book a week.
But I do have days where I don't read but I can't go long without reading I'll have withdrawal I'm a bookworm
They have old and new books, so I get to hear books that I just wouldn't persevere with reading otherwise.
But like Liz says, I love savouring the mechanics of the artist as I go. You know the old notion of the book triangle: author, work of art and reader, all needing each other.