[Coco with marshmallows]

for those asking about speed reading, some generic tips:

http://www.wikihow.c...n-Speed-Reading

speaking personally - speed reader already. blessing and a curse. Imagine buying a hardback book (14-20 pounds depending on book size, etc)

Then imagine reading the whole damn thing in a 2-3 hours. When its a good book - no problem, re-read at some point. When its average or poor - "Shit, what a waste of cash. Could have read that in the shop"

And on topic - Dresdencrack.

[Andorion]

Cocoreturns, on 22 August 2014 - 09:38 PM, said:

for those asking about speed reading, some generic tips:

http://www.wikihow.c...n-Speed-Reading

speaking personally - speed reader already. blessing and a curse. Imagine buying a hardback book (14-20 pounds depending on book size, etc)

Then imagine reading the whole damn thing in a 2-3 hours. When its a good book - no problem, re-read at some point. When its average or poor - "Shit, what a waste of cash. Could have read that in the shop"

And on topic - Dresdencrack.

That page seemed to assume for some reason that speed reading equates lack of comprehension. If this was true, I would have gone through life understanding nothing.

I kind of became a speedreader unconsciously. I read dozens and hundreds of books, all of which were fiction, all of which I really liked and somewhere in the middle it sort of happened

[McLovin]

It's like bragging about listening to the Ring cycle on fast-forward. I guess you can say you listened to it, but did you get anything out of it?

[Andorion]

McLovin, on 23 August 2014 - 01:19 PM, said:

It's like bragging about listening to the Ring cycle on fast-forward. I guess you can say you listened to it, but did you get anything out of it?

Actually I do get things out of it. I know lots of people like to take things slow, and savour the read, but for me the first read, if its a book that I like is always breakneck fast. I have been reading like this ever since I can remember. It does sound like bragging I guess but this is something I have been doing ever since I was little and had to race through my books before my parents dragged me off to do homework.

Don't know about the experience of an audiobook though. i have never used an audiobook and I prefer reading to listening anyday.

[Esa1996]

I read every word and skim nothing. Here are some of my more impressive feats:

Wheel of Time 13, 3 days, 362 pages per day
Hunger Games 1-3 re-read, 3 days 336 pages per day
Wheel of Time 12, 3 days, 329 pages per day
Wheel of Time 14, 5 days, 240 pages per day
The Stormlight Archives 2, 6 days, 222 pages per day
Wheel of Time 11, 5 days, 209 pages per day

That's a complete list of all the books I've ever read with an average reading speed of over 200 pages per day (Wheel of Time 9 just misses the mark with 199 p/d). Harry Potter 7 might be worth mentioning as I was only 11 back when I read it and hadn't read much English before it (I'd read HP6 twice, HP2 and HP5 and nothing else).

Harry Potter 7, 4 days, 165 pages per day

And my most impressive feat of all (Not necessarily for the speed but for how long I kept it up):

Wheel of Time 1-14 + New Spring, 79 days, 186 pages per day

And I would consider all of those as all consuming. I'm reading Wars of Light and Shadow 2 at the moment and it is far from all consuming, which can be seen in the pace I'm reading it at (Around 20 pages a day)

This post has been edited by Esa1996: 08 June 2017 - 02:23 PM

[stone monkey]

Depending on the book, some are harder to zoom through than others, I can read at approx 200 pages an hour. Which gets kind of irritating, as Coco indicated, when you drop 20 quid on a new hardback (for some reason I always manage this with Alastair Reynolds) and are done with it in 2 to 3 hours.

I read 3500 pages in a weekend one time (one of the books was DHG, and I really had nothing else to do). My head was a bit of a mess afterwards (too much shoved into it at high speed, I expect), it was expensive but it was also fun while it lasted. An ex of mine once lent me a 60 page novella and I was done with it by the time I got off the bus at my house, 30 mins later - she was a bit peeved by that.

As far as learning to speed read goes. I've been reading for pleasure pretty constantly for the last 40 years, and early on I learned the knack (which comes back to bite me fairly regularly) of ignoring pretty much anything going on around me whilst reading. These days I don't even have to think about reading quickly, it just happens on its own.

To read quickly you have to be sucked in by the book, I feel. That doesn't necessarily mean the book has to be a good one (it helps, of course), it just has to grab your attention.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 22 June 2017 - 08:47 PM

[Mentalist]

I think my last one like that was the 1st expanse book. I read that in one day (though I was up until like 3 AM) till I finished it.

[Abyss]

The latest Peter Grant book, LIES SLEEPING, hit that level for me.That’s at least in part bcs it’s bk 7 and the investment is paying off, but even so.

[polishgenius]

Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota hit that level for me, they're almost hypnotic.

Also recently A Winter's Promise, first in the Mirror Visitor, came pretty close.