You Don’t (Always) Have to Read Everything
Books. Oh, man. Books. Where do I even start.
I’ve been an avid reader since I was a kid. Initially I read to get my parents’ praises, to solicit awe from relatives. But slowly it grew on me and defined who I am. Nowadays I read when I eat, poop, and during other free times. Just recently I had this brilliant idea to wrap my Kindle with plastic wrappings, enabling me the pleasure of reading in the shower.
And it is precisely my experience with that brilliant piece of reading device, that glorious piece of plastic with murky gray screen that displays text in its own worryingly slow and brittle way, that reminds me about an uncomfortable truth: there is just way too many books to read in a lifetime.
As my responsibilities in life add up, I do not have the time to read them all. It’s simply unfeasible. Faced with this sad prospect, I tried an obvious solution. I needed to read faster.
So I tried speed reading.
At its core, speed reading is like crazy gymnastics for your eyes. There are various methods to it. One method tells you to read in a Z-shaped flow, consuming multiple lines of sentences at once and hoping your brain will automatically find the pattern and rebuilt the meaning inside your head. I’ve never been able to do this. Every time I try I can’t help but think that I am a chameleon, and instead of mentally gathering the words I’m currently reading, I suddenly feel that my eyes can move independently from each other and it makes me feel really weird.
Another method suggests that if you could just stop subconsciously subvocalizing to yourself, you will read faster. I can’t do this as well. It’s like when someone told you not to think about a giraffe. Chances are you can’t resist a giraffe spontaneously appearing in your mind. Also when I do this it’s easy to lose the meaning of a word and I can’t help to think how the word “giraffe” looks like a prancing, double-necked giraffe.
However there’s this one method that sticks with me and it works. And by it works I mean holy crap I just finished four books in two weeks. It is based on what Theodore Roosevelt taught to his son Kermit. When his son asked him how to best read Dickens, Roosevelt said:
“The wise thing to do is simply to skip the bosh and twaddle and vulgarity and untruth, and get the benefit out of the rest.”
That method is what I like to call the “you don’t (always) have to read everything” method.
John F. Carrington, an expert in African talking drum communication, explained how African drummers can talk to each other over long distances using only the beat of their drum. It turned out, they used tonal redundancy to preserve an information. For example, if they wanted to tell the other to come back home, they’d make sounds that could be translated as:
Make your feet come back the way they went,
make your legs come back the way they went,
plant your feet and your legs below,
in the village which belongs to us.
This redundancy ensures that a message can be received and understood even if only parts of it is heard, which is quite possible if you’re trying to say something to someone 5 miles away with a freaking drum.
Books are written with redundancies built in, too, although for a different reason. If you’re writing something, chances are you want it to reach the widest audience possible. Meanwhile, people have different ways of thinking. Some can understand your idea easily, some others can’t. To be safe, what better way than to surround your idea with redundant supports from many different angles? That way more people can be convinced at once.
And therein lies our clue. Generally, a book is written with the least knowledgeable person in mind. Chances are you are not that person. Therefore, you don’t have to read everything in it. Why should you? Some of those words are probably not written for you, anyway.
In my experience, how much I can skip depends on how fast I can accept an idea presented by that writing. Sometimes I read from an author I already know and like. That way, it doesn’t take much for her to convince me. A couple of sentences and I’m off to the next paragraph. Sometimes I read about a concept I’m already aware of before, something I have a faint agreement with. In such case, I skip a lot as well.
It’s also a good idea to be able to notice when an author rambles on about something. Sometimes books can be redundant because, simply put, writing is hard. Being concise is hard. Editing is hard. Accepting edits is double hard. So if you’re lucky enough to possess a good internal editor in your brain, put that thing to work. Let it tell you when it’s safe to skip.
With this method, I also try to read less and ponder more. Instead of immediately jumping to the next chapter after grabbing an idea, I put down what I’m reading and try to internalize it. If done right, one minute of pondering can have more lasting impact than reading hundred lines of sentences at once.
Another thing that helps for me is highlighting. Not reading everything inevitably leaves me with a fear that I might just have missed something important. With frequent highlighting of key ideas, I leave my future self with plenty of breadcrumbs in case he wants to verify or re-learn something later on. That, usually, is enough to quiet down the fear.
In the end, what we truly seek from a book is a new understanding, not the satisfaction of having pored through each and every word. I’m fully aware that sometimes we read for leisure, that we enjoy the craft in which each and every word is chosen and put together. But if one day you need to learn something fast, or if back in January you confidently put down 75 books in Goodreads for this year’s goal what with the daze of new year’s optimism and all and it’s now the end of April and you’ve only managed twelve books?
You might want to give this method a try.
Picture credits: Sam Howitz http://www.flickr.com/photos/aloha75/8394475587/
