Wow, how does somebody get all that reading/working done in a year?
http://blog.fogus.me/2012/02/22/reading/
http://blog.fogus.me/2012/05/23/extreme-reading/
After thinking of it in those terms, I've started to apply the idea that the more I read, the faster I will read (up to a point), to actively avoid subvocalization, and to devote real blocks of time to reading instead of fitting it in at the edges. I find that I end up reading closer to 400 wpm during focused time, and when I want to, I'm able to average 1-2 hours/day of a week. Spending that much time at 400ish words per minute makes books fly past. Keeping comprehension up and realizing value is where taking some notes comes into it.
Beyond that, as he says, you have to know what you're reading a book for. For example, it's probably not worth reading the introduction and basic content chapters of technical books you're already up-to-speed on, and you can skip right to the important parts and just read them deeply.
i feel like for stuff like novels the vocalization & imagined richness of the world is kind of part of the point, and for technical material, grasping the ideas is by far going to be the limiting factor. (e.g., easy to spend an hour on 1 page of a math text.)
I can't read without subvocalization... I tried keeping my mind preoccupied with gibberish words and even thinking in a foreign language but a second voice chimes in with the words as I'm reading them in the background. This is also quickly mentally exhausting...
I don't consider myself a slow reader - as I speedread at 700~800wpm. The subvocalization merely happens by slurring words together as if playing a movie on x3 Fast Forward w/ sound. I'm not capable of seeing how it hurts the rate of reading. I could see voicing or actually reading aloud to slow down reading, but not this.
is there a website to test reading speed + comprehension? i'm thinking something w/ like an auto-generated story of fixed elements ("a pig and a horse visit the blue house on the hill", "a donkey and an ostrich cross the bridge over a river"), or maybe just a sampling of a large corpus of real text of similar level. you get timed on how long it takes you to read it + given a basic test to see if you actually absorbed it.
would be interesting to get some numbers, and also see if these (mythical?) non-subvocalizers really are faster.
i think i could see it maybe working, but i also feel like the words would be taking a whole new path through my brain. almost like a new language.
(reply up here because i guess i hit some hn karma limit on replying or something :/.)
Absolutely true! I don't read much math, but I have and my reading rate was much slower. There have been a few books over the past year that took me months to get through whereas most others took a matter of days. I read a few books in parallel though.
Here's confessions of someone who read 164: http://www.vox.com/2015/12/29/10634416/reading-list-books
Blogger/economist Tyler Cowan also advises quitting books that are a slog.
2 books per week was an amount that makes me happy, so I kept up with it easily. I fell behind early this year because my wife and I wanted to catch up on a couple of TV shows, which meant I needed to average over 2.5 books per week. That was enough to kill part of the fun, which is why I've struggled.
A goal is great because it helps you get started on the next book when you might want to do something easier. But if it's too big it just makes reading a chore.
That's about right. I spend about 2-hours per week on television (depending on the season I spend zero) and I haven't played a video game in 5 years. There have been many times that I've wanted to see certain shows (Supergirl looked fun) but when the time comes reading wins out almost every time. I can only read this much because I love reading more than any other form of entertainment. It would be impossible otherwise. It does kinda stink to never be able to engage in conversations about games and shows though. Maybe there's a market for semi-annual books about current media. ;)
It is very true that the more you read, the faster and better you get at it. I always read more than one book at one time - and I read only things I find interesting. I find fiction very uninteresting and that is why I do not read it, even though a lot of people give me shit for it.