"In spiritual matters there really is no 'Third World.' It's all Third World."
- Dallas Willard
Sunday, September 30, 2007
I'm a slow reader. Scratch that. I'm a super slow reader. I've got large books in my queue that literally take me months -- sometimes years -- to get through.
On the positive side, I think I remember a lot more of what I read. I've talked to voracious readers, who burn through two or three books a week, but can't remember jack about the books they've read.
Personally, I'd rather be somewhere in between those two extremes. I'd rather be able to read a quicker pace while still having decent retention. I am what I am, though, and what I am is a slow reader.
Case in point: I've been reading The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 1, for over a year now. I don't read it every day or anything, but I'm not even halfway through. At this rate, I'll end up finishing the third volume sometime in 2015.
Trackbacks:
Trackback URL: http://thinklings.org/bloo.trackback.php/4147.
Comments on "Slow Ride, Take It Easy":
2. Alan
- 10/01/2007 12:08 pm CDT
I'm one of those who tears through books. I think I remember the gist of about everything I read, though perhaps not too many details.
So my line of thinking is a bit different. There is a ton of material out there to be read. Most isn't worth reading. Of those that are, a lot of it is fluff, and the essence can be absorbed without mastering every page. I read a lot of books so I can be exposed to a lot of ideas. Such reading experiences are more like a conversation than anything else. I don't remember everything I have read, but that doesn't mean that I didn't think about the ideas and engage the author while I read it, so the book still shaped me. We don't remember many details of the conversations and events in our lives, but over the years, these things mold us into a different people than we would be otherwise.
3. Karl
- 10/01/2007 3:51 pm CDT
I also tear through books. But I come back and re-read the really good ones. And at times, either through deliberate choice or when something I read particularly delights or challenges me, I try to slow down and practice more intentionally the art of lectio divina, as described here by Eugene Peterson:
"Spiritual reading, designated lectio divina by our ancestors, has fallen on bad times. It has always been a prized arrow in the quiver of those determined to cultivate a God-aware life, but it has suffered a severe blunting in our century. This particular arrow has lost its point more through ignorance than indifference or malice, ignorance of the sense that “spiritual†carries. For the modifier “spiritual†in spiritual reading does not refer to the content of what is read but to the way in which a book is read. Spiritual reading does not mean reading on spiritual or religious subjects, but reading any book that comes to hand in a spiritual mode.
Reading today is mostly a consumer activity-people devour books, magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers for information that will fuel their ambition or careers or competence. The faster the better. The more to the point the better. It is analytical, figuring things out. Or it is frivolous, killing time.
Spiritual reading is mostly a lover's activity, a dalliance with words, reading as much between the lines as in the lines themselves. It is leisurely, as ready to reread an old book as open a new one. It is playful, anticipating the pleasures of friendship. It is prayerful, convinced that all honest words can involve us somehow or other, if we read with our hearts as well as our heads, in an eternal conversation that got its start in the Word that “became flesh.†Spiritual reading is at home with Homer as well as Hosea.
EUGENE H. PETERSON
4. Bird
- 10/01/2007 5:27 pm CDT
Good thoughts, guys. I don't think I could ever devour books. It just doesn't fit my style I guess.
I'm a slow reader too, Bird. Largely because I don't like blasting through books, and also I tend to have four or five going at once. Some I've been on for years :-)