Tips on Reading Faster

[Philip Overby]

I don't know if I just suffer from some kind of attention problem or if I can't stick with longer novels like I used to, but I've found increasingly that I have trouble finishing books. The ones I'm having the least trouble with are actually non-fantasy books. I want to work through a lot of books I've had on my Kindle for a while.

I'd like some tips on reading faster if possible. I know the easier answer is "pick books you like," but even books I like I have trouble getting through sometimes. It may have to do with reading books on Kindle. I have so many to read, I guess I'm getting overwhelmed.

One thing I'm doing is only choosing four books a month that I can read at any given time. This allows me to jump around in order to help my attention problem, but limits the amount I have to chose from. Another thing I'm doing now is having "Weekend Samples." Meaning any sample books I have backlogged on my Kindle, I'll read through. If I like them, I'll put them in a "Buy Later" group. If I don't like them, I delete them. I think this may help me in making purchasing choices in the future.

If any fast readers have any other tips (where to read, when to read, etc.) let me know as I really want to put a dent in my To Be Read pile, but at the same time I don't want to keep abandoning books that I actually enjoy.

 

[Jabrosky]

I don't know if I just suffer from some kind of attention problem or if I can't stick with longer novels like I used to, but I've found increasingly that I have trouble finishing books. The ones I'm having the least trouble with are actually non-fantasy books. I want to work through a lot of books I've had on my Kindle for a while.

I'd like some tips on reading faster if possible. I know the easier answer is "pick books you like," but even books I like I have trouble getting through sometimes. It may have to do with reading books on Kindle. I have so many to read, I guess I'm getting overwhelmed.

I have this problem too, and I think there might be an attention problem in my case too.

This might be petty, but I've noticed that if there's some detail in a book that throws me off for whatever reason, it soils my enjoyment of the whole book. Historical or scientific errors and implausible world-building are the most common culprits.

Unfortunately it seems that the books with the most appealing subject matter are the most likely to irritate me when they get things wrong. That's almost certainly because when I know a certain subject in and out, I am more sensitive to errors about how that subject is handled. On the other hand, books that don't have anything grabbing my interest whatsoever are even harder to get through. I guess that makes me a very picky reader.

(To be fair, some errors could be glossed over if they don't actually impact the storyline. For instance, if an author were to describe the Velociraptors hunting down his protagonists as scaly instead of feathered, I could ignore the scaly descriptors and visualize the raptors as feathered anyway.)

 

[Penpilot]

I'm a super slow reader, but I've learned to read faster when I want/need to. First thing is ever notice how newspapers have articles printed in long narrow columns. They do this because it makes it easier to scan down the page and read. Second thing, try training yourself to read two, three, or even more words at a time, and if possible, filter out some of the glue words like the, to, etc.

This is how a very fast reading friend of mine reads. He chunk reads, taking in many words at a time instead of one.

For myself, I read off my iphone with narrow columns. This technique can be good for reading stories, but for technical information, stuff that I really need to memorize, not so effective for me. I can get through lots of material, but retention isn't as good for memorization, but can be decent enough in a pinch. Otherwise, it can be pretty effective when combined with flowing prose that's easy to absorb. I read a couple of Dan Brown books this way and it was a breeze.

So yeah, narrow columns and chunk reading == faster reading.

 

[Philip Overby]

Thanks for the tips, Penpilot. I don't want to seem like I dislike reading, quite the contrary. I just have so many books that I should have finished years ago still sitting on my Kindle. I want to get through them so I can move on to other books I want to read, but I've almost had a buying freeze as of late (with the occasional random buy) because I'm so far behind. I'll try what you suggested and make my Kindle adjusted so I'm reading in narrow columns if possible (maybe make my font bigger?)

 

[CupofJoe]

It may sound flippant...
Get your eyes checked...
Make sure you don't need or have the right correction to your vision. Even the slightest extra work at focusing on a page [let alone a computer screen] will make reading more tiresome. I have glasses for using a computer and other glasses for reading books. Subtly different lenses but I can feel the change. [And I can't use either to watch the TV - it's only in the last 36in. I need to help focusing]
On a more esoteric note... having 500+ books TBR doesn't help... You get crazed by the-next-book-might-be-better and skip on. Its the same with 500+ channel TVs - There has to be something good on - doesn't there?
My way to read a book is to sit in a comfy chair, with a cup of strong coffee and good winter daylight to read by, pick one book and just enjoy... That got me through The Histories by [of?] Herodotus.
If some will bring you coffee on polite request [with occasional cookie] - then you are close to heaven...

Actually what I think it is [and I have no evidence for this other my own prejudices and observations]... is the printing. On a screen or from a laser printer there are still pixels - even if they are too-small-to-see [300+ppi]. Conventional movable character printing is more like vector art or fractals... The ink and the fidelity the typeset character being the limiting factors. Yes it might have been not as perfectly spaced and laid-out and took a lot more time to get right, but that is part of its goodness. It feels right to the eye because it isn't perfect and someone did take the time to look at it and think "Does this look good to me?". Traditional typesetting and printing still looks better to me than laser or screen.
[Gets off his soapbox and disappears in to crowd...]

 

[Penpilot]

Thanks for the tips, Penpilot. I don't want to seem like I dislike reading, quite the contrary. I just have so many books that I should have finished years ago still sitting on my Kindle. I want to get through them so I can move on to other books I want to read, but I've almost had a buying freeze as of late (with the occasional random buy) because I'm so far behind. I'll try what you suggested and make my Kindle adjusted so I'm reading in narrow columns if possible (maybe make my font bigger?)

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. If I never bought another book, I'm pretty sure I'd be set for a good long while. I've got piles of books on every subject that I very much intend to read, (bargain book section at the book store is killer for me) and then there are dozens of ebooks on my phone that just seems to grow every time someone mentions a good author I should read.

For a good while there, I was reading at a pretty good pace. I blew through 4 of the 5 Game of Thrones books in three months, which is lightspeed for me. I did this by reading for an hour or so before bed everyday. I've since fallen out of this habit and it's driving me nuts. I'm half way through the fifth Game of Thrones book, and it feels like it's taking forever to get through it.

 

[Philip Overby]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. If I never bought another book, I'm pretty sure I'd be set for a good long while. I've got piles of books on every subject that I very much intend to read, (bargain book section at the book store is killer for me) and then there are dozens of ebooks on my phone that just seems to grow every time someone mentions a good author I should read.

For a good while there, I was reading at a pretty good pace. I blew through 4 of the 5 Game of Thrones books in three months, which is lightspeed for me. I did this by reading for an hour or so before bed everyday. I've since fallen out of this habit and it's driving me nuts. I'm half way through the fifth Game of Thrones book, and it feels like it's taking forever to get through it.

This is one reason I'm leery of picking up anything in a series at the moment. This doesn't mean I'm avoiding them forever, but it seems like all these big fantasy epics have been sitting around forever and I never seem to get any time to finish them. I'd say out of the last ten books I've read, probably nine were standalones.

In any case, I'm going to spend more time reading on the train instead of staring off into space if possible. Maybe that will help me breeze through some books.

And with A Dance with Dragons, I had the same issue. I was reading it on Kindle and it seemed like I was reading it forever. Actually, A Feast for Crows was the more difficult of the two for me.

 

[ThinkerX]

Yes, I am a fast reader. This was something I picked up back in 7th-8th grade: I had two different classes in the same classroom, with a fifteen minute break between classes. Said classroom had one of those 'book-shelf carts' with maybe sixty or eighty fiction books on it, each with maybe a hundred pages. So, I'd sit down and try to read one of those books during the fifteen minute break. It helped that I found the stories interesting. Can't remember what any of them were anymore.