Agreed! The key to digesting a good text book is to cover it slowly.

In my experience each chapter takes about 2 hours to read and digest. Then I need an hour to summarise and reflect. Followed by another 3-4 hours of practice. By this point I can honestly say I understand and can use the material.

So 6-7 hours per chapter. Most books I read have around 12 chapters and so take a good 72+ hours to read a book. Due to work and family commitments I can only read 3-4 tech books like this per year so I try and pick only the best works.

The value you can get out of this way of reading is phenomenal.