How do you read?
 

Mostly fiction. How exactly do you read it? Do you carefully take in each and every word, or do you read lightly so that you take in the most important ones? Do you read one word at a time, or do you read in chunks of several words? Do you subvocalize (say the words in your head)? If you're not sure whether or not you fully understood that last sentence, do you go back and read it over again, or do you just continue? Do you read popular fiction and literary fiction differently?

Let the discussion commence!

With my eyes generally. I've tried the whole braille thing but it's surprisingly difficult to pick up with absolutely no training whatsoever.

About two years ago I started learning to read with my nose, the theory being that I could find out where the ink was located and in what patterns it was by finding contrasts in smell. It actually worked very well, and it only took me two weeks to get the hang of it, so I read like that until about a month ago, when I got an ereader. To avoid the hassle of reading two completely different ways, I went back to reading with my eyes, but I'm not nearly as good at that yet.

I read strictly with my vagina.

I'm a pretty fast reader, but my short term memory isn't the greatest due to past injuries. I force myself to slow down a lot now so my comprehension doesn't suffer. I definitely subvocalize too.

By watching films.

:rofl: good one.

I like to take my time when I'm reading to visualize everything. I'm not in a rush to just burn through pages.

Oh also theres this thing I do that makes reading take a lot longer, if theres a reference to something or the book has a historical basis I'll have to go to wiki then I get lost on wiki

I read pretty quickly, and mostly fiction novels. I don't skim over pages though, I take everything in.

Reading takes forever with me just cause I'm obsessed with the number four and I have to constantly take four consecutive words and see if they add up to sixteen letters. It's an extra bonus if they have an equal number of consonants and vowels. The point being that they can then be divided into symmetrical words of four letters and two vowels/consonants each. But it doesn't count if there's a capital letter or some form of punctuation.

I do this too! Lately I've just been highlighting stuff on my kindle or use those little post it note things so I can go back at my leisure.

Slowly and with a complete lack of imagination. I would really love to enjoy reading, but I don't :(

Mostly this. I am an astoundingly slow reader; I forgot the exact number but I want to say that my speed about one quarter of the average college undergrad's. 95% of what I read is academic stuff, because that's typically what interests me most. If I read fiction, it's usually something small and dense that focuses less and characters and plot and more themes and emotion.

I absolutely love reading but I'm not a fan of fictional stories. I prefer biographies, history, and especially various takes on music commentary and criticism. And yes...my reading includes the newspaper as well ( :thumb: ) ! Overall, I'm a pretty fast reader. However, comprehension is VERY important to me ( :wavey: ).

Very quickly. 1984? One week. Lord of the Flies? Two days. Fahrenheit 451? One.

I used to read really really fast, but now I've learned to only read a little at a time makes the book last for me. I'm reading the Fountainhead and after a few weeks I'm only halfway through chapter 4.

I've always been really dependent on other people for recommendations on what to read. I'm pretty slow with it. I've always always had troubles with not having the energy to gainfully invest in whatever I'm reading or having too much and occupying myself in other ways. Usually with work or getting messed up. I'm still reading 1Q84 right now and I got it about a month and a half ago.

Upside down.

Depends on the book. Someone like Cormac McCarthy is a hell of a tougher read than say, Steven King.

We read aloud. An hour set aside after dinner for it.

With whom?

My wife, a skilled orator and actress, reads aloud, for me privately. And sometimes for the children when they want a story.

It really is a beautiful novel though, philosophy aside.

As long as he doesn't move on to Atlas Shrugged....

I don't know that you can separate it from the philosophy, and even if you can I disagree - her writing is awful. I think it appeals to people my age and a little older of above-average intelligence because it tells them they're special and that other people only want to drag them down, and I'm glad it's not a phase I've ever had.

Well, to each their own I guess. I was able to look past the philosophy and enjoy the vivid imagery of the novel.

Her imagery is what really gets me into the book for sure.

my ADD makes reading slower cause i constantly start thinking about other ****. sometimes i will be saying the words im reading in my head but not paying attention to them and actually thinking about something else, then i will have to backtrack and re-read that section to get it.

i generally do like reading though.. but it has to be the right kind of writing. i like a lot of 20th century stuff... hemingway, steinbeck, bukowski, philip k dick, etc.. and i can even **** with some older stuff to a certain extent like a few poe stories and whatnot... but generally speaking i have a harder time with stuff that is really old. even dickens and stuff like that can be a bit boring to me. i remember some of the stuff they made us read in high school was absolute torture to me. beowulf and shakespeare and that kind of ****... can't do it, man.

i did start reading the iliad though and i liked it. especially the part where zeus was telling his woman hera to slow her role like "look bitch, i tell you the things i think you can handle and the rest is for me to worry about." zeus knows how to keep his pimp hand strong.

Ayn Rand did have talent, her prose is good, but I do tend to find her detestable.

Isn't a lot of Rush's music based on Ayn Rand? I may be wrong about that...

Sure is, Neil Peart used to be a big fan. Not so much anymore though.

Some amazing music, that. I'm not familiar firsthand with Rand, so is, for example, "philosophers and plowman each must know his part to shape a new reality", a Randesque sentiment?

I usually have to re-read something several times to understand it as I typically feel disconnected from my body and reality to a point I cannot concentrate. When I can feel my brain never stops thinking and going off on various thought trails so it's nearly impossible to concentrate anyway.

Neil Peart: For me, Rand's writing was an affirmation that it’s alright to totally believe in something and live for it and not compromise. It was a simple as that. On that 2112 album, again I was in my early 20s. I was a kid. Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal – because I’m an idealist. Paul Theroux’s definition of a cynic is a disappointed idealist. So as you go through past your 20s, your idealism is going to be disappointed many many times. And so, I’ve brought my view and also – I’ve just realized this – Libertarianism as I understood it was very good and pure and we’re all going to be successful and generous to the less fortunate and it was, to me, not dark or cynical. But then I soon saw, of course, the way that it gets twisted by the flaws of humanity. And that’s when I evolve now into … a bleeding heart Libertarian. That’ll do.

I'm trying to read Lovecraft and Poe currently, but my vocabulary isn't too extensive, so many of the words I encounter are strange to me. Every word I don't know, I look up in the dictionary, even if it's not vital to my understanding of the plot. How many of you guys do this?

For as long as I can remember I've kept a dictionary close by. There's one on the shelf behind me 5 feet away right now. You should have one with you whenever you read. It's a great way to expand your vocabulary.

I find Poe a lot easier to read than Lovecraft. I'm a bigger fan of Lovecraft though, and think his "The Colour Out of Space" is one of the most terrifying short stories ever.

Not too often. I've got a pretty good vocabulary, and I don't read as much nonfiction as I probably should, so I don't come across words I don't know too often. When I do, I can usually guess its meaning from the context, but if I can't, then yeah, I'll look it up.

Stay on with the Lovecraft though. Poe's cool and all, but his stories pretty much always have rational(ish) explanations, while Lovecraft's are always bat**** insane.

I love that story. The "villain" is one of his most ambiguous, so you never really know what the hell its true nature is. I've been halfway through "Shadow Over Innsmouth" for a while now, as I tend to get into a book and then get distracted and leave it for months on end, but even so, that might just be my fav. It's narrative is one of his most developed, and you can really imagine yourself in the story (You ever spend ten minutes on Thesaurus.com, desperately looking for adjectives, that you can almost but not quite remember, and come up with nothing?).

Will have to read this. Thanks for the reminder about it.

I've often wondered what it would have been like to spend an evening with Lovecraft sipping brandy and just talking about "stuff" with him. Was the dude able to carry on normal conversations?

I usually read each page at least two or three times because my mind tends to wander while I'm reading... Which kind of sucks because I love to read. :(

Ok, that may be an exaggeration but it happens enough to be notable.