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Comment by tom_rath | Hacker News Reader

I don't. Quantity rarely corresponds with quality.

The greatest value I gain from books is in identifying how the subject discussed can apply to my own circumstances. That insight often comes to me in the pauses between pages and paragraphs where I find myself thinking on what was just read.

I might be able to absorb a bit more information from speed-reading, but I don't think I could process and internalize the text nearly as well. Since that's why I'm reading the book in the first place, speed-reading seems of little benefit to me.

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I personally would like to get as much of the reading out of the way so that I can process. This really doesn't take time away from processing, just saves time reading. And we really can read much faster than we do and not have it have an impact on our processing.

IMHO most of the content in the books (especially non-fiction) is of no use to me. It's the 5% of insight that is added to my life that adds value and that I really want to think about.

Finding and internalizing that "5% of insight" is why I read at a normal pace.

Being able to pick up new terminology quickly can be helpful.

Case in point, I'm trying to learn financial math. I get the concepts pretty well (just parabolic PDEs and similar things), but it would be helpful if I could more easily remember what the boundary conditions for "down and out barrier options" were or what the exact definition of "VaR" is.

Speed reading could help here, though I don't know how to do it.

For understanding, repetition and context will help more than speed.

Read a number of articles on the subject. Write out the definition in your own words or explain it to a friend. Complete a few textbook exercises to calculate the values you want to understand.

Taking the time to internalize a subject is significantly more helpful than quickly scanning words you do not yet understand.

Understanding isn't the issue for me. I have a solid math background, so I'm understanding things about as fast as I can read them. My main issue is the terminology, there is just lots of it.

A more traditional programming example is this; if you learn Java you need to understand, but learning the libraries is more a matter of remembering than understanding.

Some subjects are broad, not simply deep. Speed reading (or whatever) could help with the breadth.

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