Fast reading versus slow reading
By Tom Teicholz at 17 November, 2008, 4:43 pm
Over the last few weeks I needed to get up to speed on a number of writers, Yoram Kaniuk, Mier Shalev, Evan Handler, Jonathan Kirsch so I sped through a lot of books. I read them, and I read them fast — and it was amazing how one could really get a feel for the work and a sense of the writer from quick and deep immmersion in their work.
On the other hand, what don’t really do is savor the work.
At the same time, there is a book that I am reading currently and that I am enjoying reading slowly. It is Gombrich’s “Short history of the world”. Whenever I pick it up, I only read a chapter. I want to read more, but I force myself not to — why? because I enjoy it that much, I want to go slow I want to experience each chapter as its own unit, I want the experience of reading Gombrich, of enjoying Gombrich to last.
It’s not quite the difference between fast food and the slow cooking movement — but my recent experience reminded me that there are books that are best read slow……
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