I took a speed reading class as a child. I am a book reviewer and use this technique to get through boring books. I don't want to dnf, but sometimes the content is so dry. I agree the more you practice this skill, the better you get. Great tips! I enjoyed this video!
Good tips! The non-fiction one is gold! Half my problem is feeling like I HAVE to read every word in non-fiction (to be the intellectual I am ...LOL) The ability to speed up audiobooks changed the game. Now "normal" speed sounds like they are underwater.
I turned on the last 1/2 hour of the non-fiction audiobook I've been listening to before bed last night and my friend who was visiting over March Break was asking me how I understand it. So I showed him the book played at normal speed for a minute and said see how overly slow that suddenly sounds in comparison? He agreed, and so I showed him how to increase the speed just a bit for awhile until that sounds normal, and keep gradually doing that. His mind was blown, he listens to audiobooks all the time too, so he's really excited to start doing this now and fit in more reading. :) I kind of felt like I had spread a gospel or something. 😂
I'm with you on basically all of this! For me, alternating genres is also a necessity because I just can't read one thing all the time, even if it's a favorite.
I agree -- I get into a kind of rut genre wise (like right now all I want are mysteries) but I force myself to inject a little variety around it or else I burn myself out
I read really slowly and I’m easily distracted, but if I’m into a book, then I feel like I’m sitting inside the book’s world. I don’t think that I’d enjoy reading faster. I want to preserve my journey. I am going to take your advice on the audio books (not at double speed, probably) and maybe the purse book (not that I’m going anywhere).
I read ebooks faster than physical books and I think that's mainly because it is so easy to read bits here and there. I listen to audiobooks when I'm cooking, cleaning, in the car, etc. Those two things have made a huge difference in the number of books I can read in a year. I'm not really interested increasing my reading speed, but I know others are. I'm going to try your tip with non-fiction. And yes, listening to an audiobook is reading. That's why reading to children is so important! I have a friend whose daughter has a learning disability that affects her reading comprehension. However, if she listens to the book, she has no problems. (She actually has her college textbooks on audio and listens as she goes through the text.) Listening definitely counts! People who don't understand this really irritate me.
I definitely agree that having a variety of different book formats has helped me speed up my reading! I also find that I tend to read ebooks faster than print for some reason? Not sure why
I loved this, I'm definitely trying to read more this year, I've already read the same amount that I read last year and it's only been 5 months, so I'm really excited to keep going!
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I know this video is old, but you are so right about waiting. There is so much waiting in our lives that is time that could be spent doing something like reading.
Definitely adding audiobooks at the faster speed has added seceral books to my list, both from a time spent reading standpoint and choosing books that are not necessarily things I would choose in the store. Also, I am like you, I search for any spare moment, whether it is doing my morning routine getting ready or waiting somewhere, I have a book by my side. This is why I always have multiple books at a time going. They are often in different formats. Great tips!
100% - different formats help mix things up & gives the flexibility to match a book to the circumstances you're in throughout the day. And yes, speeding up audio was a game changer for me enjoying them!
I read ‘how to read a book’ a couple weeks ago. It’s a good book and it basicly states that al those speedreading courses are nonsens. Yes you can learn to read a book faster but understanding and remembering the text suffers. I tried different speedreading techniques and I must agree with that. So I’ve come to accept that I’m a slow reader. But I can stop reading a book in the middle and not reading it for a year and pick it up again with remembering how the story went and continue reading.
Excellent tips, and love what you said about audiobooks. I am a first grade teacher and it makes me so angry when people say listening to reading doesn’t count!!
Speed reading is like running through a museum to find the exit; running through the garden to only notice the colour of the rose. Restless, impatient, no respect for the prose. The journey made with intent, slow and with thought is something which with numbers cannot be bought. Appreciate the nuance, the cadence, the tale for a book's soul is found in the detail.
Great video! I started listening to audio books this year and i really love it, I might try speeding it up to 1.5 or 2X speed cus it can sometimes be a bit slow.
I'm so glad you made a video about this. I had been wondering how you were consuming 300 books a year. This helped a lot on how to better my faster reading skills. I read 47 books in 2018. I read them at normal speed...reading every word. In 2019, I tried skimming the pages for the most important parts of the story. If it's not something that actually moves the story forward I don't even pay attention to it. I don't want to spend a page and a half reading about a dilapidated barn. Ha! I ended up reading 111 books in 2019 because I learned to focus on the important things instead of all the 'background noise' of the story. I'm still in the process of teaching myself how to scan the pages and pick up on the gist of the story without reading the entire page. You're right...practice, practice, practice. I have not listened to any audio books yet. I'm hoping to add that to my reading this year. I love listening to things like NPR or the Serial podcast. So this tells me I'm gonna do best with non-fiction.
Love this video...you are spot on with having a book with you all the time and audio books. I haven't done it yet, they are very successful for a reason.
I wonder if all the people who deem audiobook as not"reading" have done research about it or if they are just some incredible snobbish people who have never listen to audiobook? Should they spent 2 minutes on Google they'd realize that it exactly the same. I'm so annoyed to see the question comes up time and again for no reason. It's the same thing unless you are under 10 and still learning to read. And yeah, let's go back in time and let all the people know they've never read because they were read aloud by someone else. Anyway, I'm passionate about it! One thing I've noticed with 5-6 years of tracking my reading is I read a lot more (between 200-250) when I'm single. As soon as I share my life with someone, I don't have as much time to read and I suddenly read a 100ish books.
Yeah, I think a lot of the snobbishness about audio comes down to having very set ideas about what "real readers" are like, and I just don't have time for it. I get if people don't like audio - fair enough. I just don't understand shitting on something other people are enjoying & trying to make them feel less than... so few people read in general. Don't make people feel bad about doing it in a way that works for them! And 100% on singleness vs. being in a relationship... if I had a partner or kids, I am completely sure I'd read significantly less. But since my time is my own, I get to fill my down time as I please :)
I'll never look down on someone that listens to audio-books, but at the end of the day you literally didn't "read" it you listened to it. I feel like it's all solved by saying "I listened to the audio-book". Maybe i'm too literal on such subjects, but a line has to be drawn somewhere or next people will watch a movie and say they read the book.
Dad read to us a lot when we were Children and I read to my Niece and Nephew when they were younger. I go to Audio books if I am not well as I can just listen to then when no can't cope with a book. I can lie in bed and absorb the book as it is read to me. I also listen while I am cleaning the flat.
Last year I read 170 books which was the first in my life. Maybe this year I'll also read a high volume (?) But I agree with your methods of reading more books. I highly recommend that people read ebooks and listen to audiobooks. I'm also highly in favor of reading multiple books at once. The trick is to read DIFFERENT BOOKS. A comment argument against that is that people fear mixing up the books, but I don't see how someone could confuse a history of the American civil war with a memoir of a musician with a crime novel--if someone can I'd be impressed. The "audiobooks are reading" argument doesn't bother me as much as the "quality over quantity" argument does. It doesn't make any sense!! 1) Not every book requires one's strict attention and are in fact just meant to be entertaining and quick 2) It is possible to read many books and have those books be of high quality. Ugh! All the rage! Lol I just unsolicitedly ranted in your comments. Does it show how passionate I am about it? Anyway thanks for the video. You're the best :)
Yes, I think the reading different genres idea is a great tip! I've never had a problem "keeping track" of things, but I know that's something that bothers a lot of people
@@bookslikewhoa I follow this tip not because I find it hard to keep track of books but because I like the variety. Too much of the same thing at once would irk me.
For large books im using audible because I'm a slow reader im reading short books and trying to be faster. I'm finding i can get through short books much quicker. It can take me a couple of years to read some large books.
Getting over my reluctance to listen to audiobooks has helped my readership immensely. Though I must admit I personally cannnot imagine speeding up my audiobooks. I treat the experience like going to the theater, I guess? I want to hear the inflection, all the pauses, changes of tone etc. But props to all who can do it :)
Your point about getting through a book when its not a book you typically like is a huge point. I usually read (or listen to) Crime and thriller fiction. I got it in my head that i HAD to read "The subtle art of not giving a F*ck" because audible and Scibd had told me this for months, so I tried.. I couldn't even finish it. I can get through my usual books so fast and that is why I chose Scribd, I was reading too many compared to my credit balance.. but because it was a genre I didnt like, It was just a waste of time in the end because it took me longer to get through even half of it.
A huge pet peeve of mine is that on Overdrive I can only speed up audiobooks to 2x speed, I started out at normal speed when I first started getting used to audiobooks, and sped it up by 0.25x a little at a time until the new speed sounded normal to me each time. I find it very similar to when I was 4 or 5 and first started reading novels, it was difficult to focus, I'd find myself getting distracted taking in the words without really /taking in/ the words, having to reread sentences, and through reading every day I got better at focusing and my speed also increased. Learning to read audiobooks felt very similar to that because there were certain aspects of it like the focus and speed that I sort of needed to relearn while things such as vocabulary or grammar were not things I had to relearn for a new format. Anyway, at this point 2x speed can sound pretty slow to me some days, and I wish I had the option to speed it up even further in order to continue improving my audiobook listening speed, because unlike with traditional reading where the only limit to speed is pretty much your own mind and the amount of time and effort you choose to put into consciously working on improving it, with audio I'm limited by the options given to me by whatever sound file -player I am using.
2x is usually pretty comfortable for me, but yeah, it would be nice to throttle it up for some narrators... there are some audiobooks where I seriously can't imagine how anyone listens to them at regular speed since the nnnarrrattooorrr taaaaaallllkkkssss ssoooooooooooooo slllllooooooowwww :)
@@bookslikewhoa it would be really nice to have the option to speed it up even more, even just to challenge myself to see how fast I can listen while still taking in and remembering the information, which would be interesting, if nothing else!
Audiobooks are my least favourite way of reading a book. I space out easily and don't retain much since I can't visualize it if it's being said aloud rather than reading it in my head. If I do use audiobooks, I usually give a book a lower rating simply because I can't get into it as much as a physical read, so unfortunately if I listened to them more often, I wouldn't be enjoying them as much and to me it's not worth it (unless it's the Illuminae Files, the only series I REALLY recommend the audiobook of).
I listen to Audio Books when I am not well and the effort to concentrate is just not happening. What about reading the Classics a bit quicker, you didn't mention them. I always have a book with me,but so slow these days.
So apparently I been doing the thing that you talk about @2:40 , about letting my eyes travel through the page and pick up the words as I go. It wasn't until I heard you explain it that I realize that "oh shit I do that!" Honestly I think the reason I don't read more is because I can't just sit/lie down and just read for a long period of time. I'll read for a bit then pause to do something else then read again, very rarely would I just stay put and read for a long time. Taking a book with you everywhere is such a mood. I'm always taking whatever I'm currently reading with me everywhere along with a small pouch with some colorful sticky notes,pen, and paper because I like to annotate like that. I don't like writing on the actual book. As for audiobooks, the only reason I don't listen to them as much is because I have a bit of a auditory processing problem, which is why I like watching things with subtitles and when I listen to audiobooks I like to follow along with the book. Lately I been listening to podcast so I been getting better at consuming media through just listening so I might try listening to more audiobooks in the future!
I totally understand that about audio -- I think some people just don't process things aurally so audio is just not a good fit. For me, I have certain genres that I can process that way, primarily non-fiction, mystery, & fantasy. But it took a lot of experimentation to figure that out!
@@bookslikewhoa I've decided to go with audible from your reviews and overall it's easier to use and the offer was a good one. I'm really enjoying it. Wish they'd give more credits a month though... Thanks for making these videos
Having a book read to you isn't reading, but it's still consuming the book. Reading is a skill we had to learn. Kids aren't reading by listening so therefore neither are adults. The thing is though, it doesn't really matter how you get the story, eyes or ears or fingertips, the story is what matters.
I definitely agree that if the point of a reading experience is the act of reading itself, audio isn't the same. It always somewhat confuses me if young kids are allowed to do audio since I think reading assignments at that age are about building the skill of reading. From my POV, though, for adult readers, usually when we say "reading," we're more talking about experiencing the story, so in that sense, it's completely valid to talk about "reading" an audio book. It's a colloquialism that I think is commonly understood TBH, it's a little ad hominem on my part I admit ;), but I mostly just find that people who super into policing the idea of "reading on the page is better than listening to audio" are coming from a really pedantic place of trying to feel superior to others... from where I stand, I'm with you -- just get that story however it works best for you! There's few enough people consuming books as is
Eric Story they’re the penguin cloth bound classics. I just finished reading wuthering heights from this edition and are planning on buying more throughout the year
