That’s why I read my absolute favorites over and over again – to pick up the details I hastily missed the first or second (or third) time through.

I have ADD so reading for me is like having all the words of another book spread amongst the ones on the page and someone forgetting to colour code them….and then trying to watch TV at the same time.

It’s exhaustingly slow at times and consequently that much worse when the novel is so-so. The only reprieve is when you finally get into a cracker of a book, hyperfocus kicks in and everything else finally just drifts away. The payoff of that, however, is that reading speed increases from glacial to below average and you finish that much quicker.

Still, saves me buying 2 more books a week I guess. Every cloud, eh?

I’m reading the Steve Jobs bio and it’s taking forever. Only because it’s so interesting. And I’m keeping the print small on my e-reader on purpose.

And John Irving novels are like that for me, too.

But other authors I speed right through. It all depends on the book.

And the faster I read, the sooner I wanted to be done with the story. I’d scan paragraphs and judge if they held any plot-relevant revelations – and if not, I zoomed right on. I’d leap through whole sentences or dialogues, only landing on the most significant words. I was a speed demon, I couldn’t wait to find out how it all turned out in the end, and then move on to the next.

And now, all grown up? I feel I’m slogging through a book if it takes any longer than a few days to finish, but when I do my old quick-tricks I notice I’m missing out on all the value of what it is I’m reading anyway. I have to force myself to relax, and pay attention, and remember that I want to be savouring this book, not beating it.

One reason ebooks are good: you can’t tell how much is left to go. That makes each moment so much easier to enjoy.