posted
A stray comment in the "Jonathan Strange" thread brings up an interesting thought.
How slow, or how fast, do you read? Or how slow or fast should you be reading?
I'm usually a pretty fast reader. Just yesterday I bought two books, and I've already finished one. (Political commentary, usually easy to grasp.) Last week I went through a biography of Sam Cooke from about Wednesday through Friday.
(I've mentioned that I've read only the first Harry Potter book. I don't think I told anyone that I read it in just over an hour. I read it at my brother's house, at the suggestion of my niece and nephew...and impressed them no end by my ability to discuss it intelligently after that short a time with it.)
However, I also at times slow down my reading speed. With the aforementioned Sam Cooke biography, I read it and have spent some time dipping back and forth in it to pick up more details and overtones.
And when I'm here online, I usually have a book by my side, that I dip into for a couple of pages while waiting for sites to download. Usually it's an old friend of a book...right now it's Michael Coney's "Cat Karina."
Sometimes it's worth reading fast...sometimes, though, the printed word has to be savored in small bites.
posted
I'm a slow reader. I really like to luxuriate in words, to taste them. So, in terms of a mass-market pocket paperback, I'll only average 30 pages an hour.
Posts: 203 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I'm a slow reader. I like to absorb the novel completely and to catch every little detail the first time around. I feel like I can get more involved in a story if I'm not reading quickly (although I can read fast if it's not something I particularly care about but have to read anyway--ie stuff for my English classes or articles and other research items for my other classes).
Posts: 107 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I can read fairly fast, but most of the time I choose to soak. There are times when I go to the book store, and read a book off the shelf in an hour or two (sometimes I start reading to see if they're worth buying and end up just reading the whole thing - usually only about 300pg novels, though). But my most favorite authors I try and slow down, savoring their language and descriptions, underlining things that catch my eye and making notes in the margins where I need to go back and study something further. This drives my husband nuts. "Just read it!" he always says. But I admit, I'm a word addict. And any chance I get to discover more about the art of the written word, I soak it in. Some books I go back and read every year. My list of those seems to be getting too big, however.
But I've lost count of the nights I've chosen to just stay up and read until morning to finish a book I started at 9:00pm. Am I the only one unhealthy enough in my addiction to do that?
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I'm a fast reader. I can't soak, I have to read quickly, to get to the end and know what happens. The second time through, I may go a little easier, but my speed is still approx. 300-350 pages per hour (yes, there were nights when I had nothing better to do than count the number of pages I averaged by hour ) Means I miss some stuff. EDIT: pixydust, you're by no means the only one. I've learnt a lesson (or should have learnt it) which amounts to "never start a book after 11pm or you'll end up sleeping at 3am"
[This message has been edited by Silver3 (edited November 17, 2005).]
posted
Yeah. I've lost count of the times where I've picked up a book in bed and kept reading long after I should have been asleep. Once I kept reading and reading...and the alarm went off and it was time to get up...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I've never counted pages, but when I was ten years old I read eight full length novels in 24 hours, and as a wife and mom and writer and singer and homemaker I still read three or four books a week on average. I will often read books in a single sitting, and I too suffer from the inability to put a book down and go to sleep, thereby cursing myself in the morning. There are some types of novels especially that I tend to read very quickly. Dean Koontz springs to mind, or any thrillers in general. Books where the plot is fast paced, my reading is fast paced as well.
If I want to savor something, I find that more of a challenge. Often my solution is simply to read the book more than once, and pick up things on the second time that I may have missed the first, and read more slowly now that I'm not in such a rush to find out what happens next. Or, I'll listen to the audio version. I love audio because it enables me to do stuff with my hands and still read, and it helps draw the book out and let me soak in it for a couple days.
I find that I forget plots rather quickly, and am quite happy to re-read novels a few years later. I will probably remember the basic story, but will have forgotten a lot of the details and richness, so I still feel I can discover new things on the re-read. And then there are my favorites, such as Pride and Prejudice or the Narnia chronicles, which I can practically recite in my sleep but which I return to anyway, to visit old familiar friends.
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I love books on tape. I rent them from the library and listen to them when I have to get things done for my quilting buisness. I went through an Amy Tan stage a while back, and all those patterns are my favorite. Posts: 811 | Registered: Jan 2005
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It all depends on the text size and book size for me. On what I consider a normal novel 300pages/250-300words per page I think i can read that in just under 2 hours. So it becomes about 125-150 pages an hour for me.
Posts: 384 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Hm. Well, I'm not exactly sure. Pretty fast for my age group, I think. I do know that I read around 400 pages of the newest Harry Potter book in one day. My goal was the whole book, but oh well, lol. I bought 4 books today -- they were comics. The Ring 1 had 154 in both parts (there were 2), The Ring 2 had 189 pages, and The Ring 0 - Birthday had 157 pages. I started to read Birthday (also The Ring, different from The Ring 0 - Birthday), I've read 60/156 pages. The part I'm reading doesn't interest me, so I came on here instead.
EDIT: "But I've lost count of the nights I've chosen to just stay up and read until morning to finish a book I started at 9:00pm. Am I the only one unhealthy enough in my addiction to do that?"
No, you aren't. I've done that lots, too. =P
[This message has been edited by x__sockeh__x (edited December 31, 2005).]
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