I read this on a BBC website today and wonder if any editors speed read whilst working. I know I don’t. Indeed, I don’t think it possible for me to read anything between 1000 and 1400 words per minute anyway, let alone edit them. And I have to admit that I’m hard pushed to believe anyone else can…enjoyably.
I found it difficult to decide where to put this post as reading is both work and a pleasure to me — both taken at a natural working trot, not a great, gullumping gallop. I don’t know. I’m sceptical here — how can speed reading possibly be enjoyable? Isn’t idling through a novel just that: abandoning the Rat Race for a while?
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| Category:
The "And These Are My Pleasures" Dept,
The "But This IS my Job" Dept.
This entry was posted
on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 7:19 pm.
September 10th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Actually, W, you probably exceed those numbers. Most of us who read, edit, and write do. You’ll find that, when stimulated by good work, you probably average around half a minute per page.
September 11th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I know I read fast - but I don’t label it “speed reading”. That would take all the pleasure out of it for me. If something’s *really* delectable, I like to savor it. I will go back and read passages again just for the joy of the way the words are put together. They taste good to my mind.
And yes, reading - IMHO - is an escape. In a good book, I’m there and have to be prodded to come back to reality. Oddly enough (and I’m not saying my writings are that great) when I write, I there too, you know? I can look around, feel the heat of the sun or shover with the cold. I just realized that the sensation is the same - reading a good book and writing. Hmm. How odd.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Concur. When immersed in one’s story world, the text pouring out the fingers while the author is actually living the story — that is writing. Wonderful. Would that I could find books which allowed me this same experience as did and do my favorites. Today, though, most of the books are dry and shallow, rather than full, vivid, live experiences. This is due to poor writing, poor authorship. Sad.
The best writing now is mostly of the type which Bosley writes — non-immersive, but interesting and vital, the words and their arrangement a part of the external, as opposed to immersed, experience.
I long for the effects of the well-delivered novel…where, upon reaching The End, one wails in despair for there isn’t another to follow. It was that author’s last book.