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August 7, 2006
Why is fast better than slow?
Interesting article on reading.
While I'm not a speed reader, I do read about a book a week. That's all I can manage in the context of my life. Now, if I had a little more time.....
No, there'd still be other things necessary to do.
But the guy who's reviewing a book a day, that I can't imagine.
But I did like this part of the article:
A reason why it's OK to abandon a book is that there are far too many books to read. There was a study in the past year that said in North America alone a new book — fiction, non-fiction, poetry, you name it — is published every 40 seconds.I feel no guilt whatsoever about being a slow reader, or about not having read all the great books, or about abandoning a book halfway through because I'm bored. There are two things in life one must never do out of a sense of duty, and one is read. I usually leave it at that and people figure out what the other thing is, but this time I am going to be explicit. The other thing is sex.
I used to think that I wanted to take a speed reading course. Remember those commercials for the Evelyn Wood School of Reading Dynamics? That was back in the day when I still thought that if I couldn't read every book in America, then I might be able to read every book in the Abilene Public Library.
With age, wisdom.
I ain't ever gonna read every book. And I no longer want to. And I'll admit it gives me a certain amount of peace to know that I can never, ever run out of stuff to read.
When I'm an old(er)lady, I shall lie in bed late and read before I get up and get dressed. Then I shall read in bed again before I sleep. And maybe I'll read a little with my lunch.
And then I'll read to my grandchildren, rocking on my back porch.
Posted by MamaT at August 7, 2006 6:01 PM