Reading Is Forgetting

Ever since my first year at uni, my reading has been transformed. The lectures forced me to read highly mathematical and algorithmic books, some of which took multiple hours per page if you want to comprehend everything. Now, my reading has slowed down drastically (10-100 times slower) but when I'm done with reading something, I understand it well enough to explain all the key concepts to someone else. Another thing is that I somehow memorize where things are, that is, when I remember some passage, I know where to look in the book almost down to the page (this doesn't work for PDFs which is one of the reasons why I avoid them). But I've lost the ability to read for pleasure, I used to be able to finish a novel in an evening.

I've never read any book more than seven or eight times, but here's another view from a "centireader" (should that be "hectoreader"?): http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/centireading-fo...

My sister will read a novel in about 4 hours, and I'll take 14 hours for the same. Afterward, I'll remember just about everything, and she will remember major plot points but few details. I don't know if the hours and retention rates are related, but I will say that reading and retention rates are not universal between people and should be separate as concepts from remembering and memory in general.

The artistic understanding aspects of the article are far more interesting to me, though I have little to add there.

I wonder how this concept ties in with my preference to be vaguely aware of as much as possible, filling in the blanks (via Google, etc.) only when needed?