Hacker News Reader

Comment by leephillips | Hacker News Reader

I had a summer job once in high school working in the office of a small business that published test preparation books and related products. They had devoted one of their rooms to a speed reading course; one day the teacher told me that as an employee I could take the course at no charge. I said that I could already read as fast as I could think, and he rolled his eyes and said, "You people who think." I believe that this skill might be useful to some people, but I prefer to avoid reading things that could profitably be speed read, because life is too short for that. For example, I haven't read the OA.

View on HN

By 'think' do you mean 'comprehend the text you're reading' in this context?

Yes, where "comprehend" means to meaningfully understand and appreciate. I was trying to express the idea that if something can be comprehended, in this sense, as fast as it can be speed read, then perhaps it's not worth reading.

One of the things I picked up from "How to Read a Book" (where they put forward that speed reading is usually just bringing slow readers up to speed), is that not everything is worth reading. There is so much to read out there, that you can't possibly read it all (relevant: http://what-if.xkcd.com/76/), and you have to pick and choose. One way to weed out what is relevant is to apportion the correct amount of time and attention to each thing you read. Some things deserve none of your time and attention; others may merely require a once through skimming to get everything of value out of it. Other works you may never exhaust (HtRaB's authors posit that only great books fall into this category, by definition). Perhaps much more important than increasing the speed of reading is developing the skill to be discerning in what and how deeply different texts should be read.

100% Agree.

Most informational books are packed with examples and context. Sometimes you need that stuff, but other times you can get 90% of the information you need just by reading the introduction, table of contents, and chapter conclusions.

I think it's important to understand your motivations for reading, and then choose a method that best fits your intended goals.

Reading is like eating — sometimes you want to savor a book and other times you want to grab and go.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com