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How to read fast
I am unfamiliar with speed reading techniques, so I cannot evaluate them.
The best way to read quickly is to read lots. And lots. And to have started a long time ago. Then maybe you know what is coming in the current book. Reading quickly is often, in a margin-relevant way, close to not reading much at all.
Note that when you add up the time costs of reading lots, quick readers don't consume information as efficiently as you might think. They've chosen a path with high upfront costs and low marginal costs. "It took me 44 years to read this book" is not a bad answer to many questions about reading speed.
Another way to read quickly is to cut bait on the losers. I start ten or so books for every one I finish. I don't mind disliking a book, and I never regret having picked it up and started it. I am ruthless in my discards.
Fairfax and Arlington counties have wonderful public library systems, and I go about five times a week to one branch or another. Usually I scan the New Books shelf and look at nothing else. I can go shopping at the best store in the world, almost any day, for free.
I am both interested and compulsive. How can I let that book go unread or at least unsampled? I can't.
Virtually every Tuesday I visit the New Books table at Borders. Tuesday is when most new books arrive. Who knows what might be there? How can I let that New Books table go unvisited? I can't. About half the time I buy something, but I always walk away happy.
Here is another reading tip: do less of other activities.
Blogging hasn't hurt my writing, it has helped by non-fiction reading, but I read fewer novels. That is the biggest intellectual opportunity cost of MR, though for the last month I've made a concerted effort to read more fiction. But it is not like the old days when I would set aside two months to work through The Inferno, Aeneid, and the like, with multiple secondary sources and multiple translations at hand. I no longer have the time or the mood, and I miss this.
Here are two earlier posts on time management.
Addendum: Jane Galt comments. And here is Daniel Akst.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 12, 2006 at 06:48 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Professor Tyler Cowen,
Please, do put your most important sentence(s) in bold. Thanks.
How Users Read on the Web - (They don't.) - by Jakob Nielsen - 1997-10-01
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html
Posted by: Midas Oracle at Dec 12, 2006 7:01:23 AM
Interesting.
I read almost exclusively non-fiction, 2-5 books a week. But good or engaging books, I might re-read as many as 5 or 6 times - Gilbert's book was an example,
If I find myself skimming along, I know that I won't return so I tried to find an argument or insight I can take away.
This is likely an instance of the sunk costs fallacy and I would be better off adopting your strategy.
But I won't - it took me a little over 44 years to develop this one.
Posted by: michael webster at Dec 12, 2006 8:01:50 AM
how did that happen?! looking at the last book list you had the other day, i was wondering how you read so much. cutting bait is very good advice. i tend to slog through too much. but i still don't read as much as i should these days, the culprits being a partner who loves TV and my response being midless ramblings online. which happily include MR. but not excuse. and in fact, it did take me 2 years to first read "absolom, absolom". and it's still one of the best i've ever read.
Posted by: eric burroughs at Dec 12, 2006 8:13:18 AM
The more you read, the faster you'll read. I read a regular sized novel in two hours flat.
At some point, you'll realise that you do have to discard what you don't like once you realise you don't like it. It's not worth the time or the headache.
IMHO, speedreading is more useful for non-fiction reading, including blogs (I speedread MR, for instance), than for novels. If you speedread a novel, then you miss a lot of the nuances.
Posted by: May at Dec 12, 2006 8:41:36 AM
Most "speed reading" techniques seem to be not about reading quickly but about sucking the content out of written material with the least amount of effort. Whether you want to "speed read" or not depends on whether your primary goal is reading per se or gathering information. A lot of current academic work (which I have to read as part of my job) really is "unreadable" in the sense that I might "read" a novel, say, or a Victorian essay. With academic work, as a matter of self-defense, you have to develop a method for getting the info without actually reading much. I.e., what is the argument? What is the evidence? Is the evidence good? Does it support the argument?
Posted by: jp at Dec 12, 2006 9:16:09 AM
"I start ten or so books for every one I finish."
"I am both interested and compulsive. How can I let that book go unread or at least unsampled? I can't."
"Here is another reading tip: do less of other activities."
HAAAAAAAAAAAA I am the same way. Thank you for making feel better about my bibliomania... I feel like less of a freak now, or at least I'm a freak in good freaky company...
Posted by: Jacqueline at Dec 12, 2006 10:41:07 AM
Here is another reading tip: do less of other activities.
In my experience, this is the key one. I find I get a lot less reading, particularly non-fiction, done while watching 10-25 hours of football a week, as opposed to the <5 hours of TV I watch a week in the football offseason. I know, I know, quite shocking.
Posted by: NewsToTom at Dec 12, 2006 11:15:48 AM
Right -- the cost of failure is low for picking up a new book. If you start reading a book and it's bad, you put it down. If you go into a movie at a theater, if it's bad, much harder to stop. You simply cannot be wedded to finishing each book!
Posted by: Ben Casnocha at Dec 12, 2006 11:45:44 AM
I second Tyler's suggestion of cutting bait on books that are less than thrilling.
I usually read non-fiction. If the first three chapters don't fascinate me, I stop reading (after perhaps skimming the final chapter).
Further more, I skip a few pages when I find the author explaining something with which I'm familiar.
IMHO, we should adapt for book reading similar habits of skimming and skipping the we use for web browsing.
Posted by: Aaron at Dec 12, 2006 1:18:01 PM
I am a fast reader and I did a speed-reading course once. It sped me up, but I don't use the techniques much because:
- when I am reading for pleasure, I like to enjoy the language as well as the plot.
- the non-fiction books I read are harder than the ones we trained on in the speed-reading course. My brain can't absorb the new ideas if I use the speed-reading techniques so the time's completely wasted.
The techniques are useful for reading newspapers or skimming a paper to find a particular section.
My brother once was amazed by how fast I read. I asked him if, when he was training 20 hours a week for the Ironman for 6 months, if he got faster. He said he did. I then pointed out that I'd been reading far more than 20 hours a week for since I was 5 years old.
Posted by: Tracy W at Dec 12, 2006 5:00:30 PM
Do you understand all you read? Do you remember it?
Posted by: Jesse at Dec 12, 2006 7:12:07 PM
"Do you understand all you read? Do you remember it?"
I think the trick is to speed read until you find something important to understand or remember, read that
part more slowly and carefully, and then (and this is very important) pick up the pace again. Also some
books are simply much easier to read quickly than others. Some books I can speed read while playing
computer games with one hand on the mouse, but these are usually what I consider low grade stuff like
horror or those fat fantasy books many American writers love to pump out.
But often I read much slower than I am able to. I sort of blame this habit on my childhood when I would
try to make a good book last as long as possible. Bad books I read fast.
Posted by: Ronald Brak at Dec 12, 2006 9:52:54 PM
I find that if I buy a book or if it is a gift, I feel compelled to read it. If I borrow a book (especially from the library), I am happy to stop reading it if I don't like it.
When I record a TV show on TiVo, I feel compelled to watch. When I'm flipping channels, I'm happy to stop watching a show.
Is this the endowment effect?
Posted by: Amit Patel at Dec 13, 2006 12:44:30 AM
The constraint to reading isn't a supply of great books. It isn't money. The constraint is time. So why don't bookstores sell time at the counter? "You're buying this book that'll take about 4 hours to read. Would you be interested in this gardening service that will come out twice a month? If we add $50 to your book purchase, you can have the book and time to read it."
Posted by: Ron at Dec 13, 2006 1:11:42 PM
I am relieved to see another avid reader who abandons books partway through. But even buying used books from amazon, I think my wife would kill me if I culled 9 out of 10 books!
My strategy is that when I am interested in a subject I do amazon searches and read what the reviewers have to say. Every reviewer, even for books with 500 reviews. Then I check out all the books that reviewers recommend. I also check out the listmanias and the other books that good reviewers have reviewed. Then I compile a list of the ten or so best books on a subject and order them all used. Some of them inevitably dissapoint, but I like about half of them.
Posted by: Justin at Dec 14, 2006 1:54:59 PM
hi, am into management consulting and laetely iv had so much to read, can anyone tell me what strategy to use tto cover my materials fast which are mostly business books
Posted by: tayo at Feb 7, 2007 10:18:03 AM
Yeah I have the same strategy for choice as Justin and recently I've been using www.librarything.com for suggestions; very useful, I mostly Read non-fiction books, but I'll drop in a good fiction now and then.
However my question for you is: Don't you feel Like wanting to keep certain ideas from a book somewhere handy and quickly reachable ? I don't have a Laptop Yet, But I guess when I'll have one I'll be doing a quick summary of each Idea I find interesting in a book, to be able to come back quickly to it. Anyone does that?
Posted by: Roy at Feb 25, 2007 11:17:10 AM
The book "Love is the Killer App" actually taught me my current strategy for reading--read lots, at the expense of other information ("books should be 90% of your media diet"), write summaries, and periodically go back and review those summaries.
In my experience, if you don't remember the book, it's like you never even read it.
Posted by: Bob at Feb 25, 2007 2:10:09 PM
I'm the same with discarding. If it doesn't grab me within the first 20 pages I put it down for good. I'm into old books though, rather than new. I rarely read anything that was written within the last 50 years. Maybe I'll join this age some day, but for the time being I haven't had my fill of the classics. Besides, I get my contemporary fix from the internet.
Posted by: John Wesley at Mar 8, 2007 11:25:54 AM
Hey Tracy, was the speed-reading course you took Paul Scheele's ? Cause I'm kinda interested in it.
I read somewhere from 2 to 10 hours everyday, mainly because I can read-walk easily. :))
People keep trying to trip me though. It's always fun stepping on their toes.
For anyone interested in read-walking, read-running and stuff like that you first have to work on divided atention. And I mean divided. Not between 2 objects, but between every single one of your senses. Some meditation is recommended in the biegging because most people lose track of their thoughts easily and forget to keep their attention divided. (basically any other activity - for example when I write essays to help my sister on her college work she reads to me out loud, I write in the computer while simultaneously reading something on the computer therefore - sound, touch, cognitive recognition of sound and cognitive recognition of visual text.)
Posted by: Tudorie Vlad at May 28, 2007 3:37:45 PM
to read fast you have to answer to the question why to read fast? if you dont have a good ansew you will never read faster,
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Posted by: Philip Franks at Sep 28, 2007 10:50:03 AM
I tend not to speed read. I read a balanced mix of fiction and non-fiction. But if I try to speed read I miss a lot of what makes a book different from a movie. I do find that while I read I often start thinking about other things as I read causing me to have to reread everything. It's really annoying. I wonder if I have ADD.
Posted by: at Oct 4, 2007 1:56:27 AM
Well written reading tips. Expect more helpful articles on how to read fast and how to write good articles.
Posted by: sblgis at May 13, 2008 12:25:04 AM
