Heroes fight live love and die between the folds of a book. Beneath the cover and bound to the spine of each of these magical devices lies a world of unknown riches. You could pick one up and be transported to the inner ring of a drug-running mafia or the private quarters of a long-forgotten teacher. You can be brought to see the edge of the world, the edge of all worlds. Things once known only to the few can be under your understanding. You can climb on the backs of giants and see the world anew.
What might the price of such a device be? Could anyone possess enough wealth to own such a thing? Long ago, this sacred vessel was reserved for those few dedicated men with whom much wealth and wisdom dwelt. Now, these arcane artifacts known to some as books can be purchased for as little as the amount of spare change hiding in your couch cushions or loaned out from temples of knowledge known as libraries.
What Does It Really Mean To Read A Book?
Some differ on what it means to read a book. If you ask the productivity and motivational gurus, they have the loosest definition of reading, where you only need to read something like the back cover and the first page. While if you were to ask a philosopher how you should read a book, they might say something like, “Reading must be done carefully, line by line, and detailed notation.” Each of these guidelines is at the extreme end of the spectrum.
The truth of the matter is that reading a book means different things based on the intent of the reader. If you are reading a book for research and you are trying to discover something or write a book of your own. You may want to go with the “line by line with careful notation” method but if you were reading a fantasy book for entertainment reading casually, a few pages at a time might suffice. There are even cases where the guru’s loose definition of reading may apply, like in the case of the guru’s books. Most self-help books are only worth this preliminary “look at the first page and back cover” kind of reading. It is as Francis Bacon once wrote,
“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
― Francis Bacon, The Essays
How To Read More Books
There are a few different ways that you could read more books. You could change your definition of reading to describe that process by where you only mean to consume the introduction, concluding chapter, and back cover. Most do this, typically if they are a motivation guru or some productivity blogger. Though this process is useful to employ in some books, some might argue all books, and this would technically allow you to “read” more books. I do not believe this is why you came here, nor would I recommend this way of increasing your read books count.
That leaves two other methods that will allow you to consume more books cover to cover than you previously would have.
1. Listening To Books
If you subvocalize, which most of us do unless you’ve been trained not to, reading books and listening to one stimulates the same parts of the brain. Subvocalizing for those of you not familiar with the term is known as the phenomenon where you read aloud in your head. This internal narration is what keeps many of us lock at low reading speeds of somewhere between 200 and 300 WPM words per minute. Being able to read without this internal narration requires a lot of training and discipline. Most never overcome this tendency. However, that does not mean you cannot increase the rate at which you finish books.
Speeding up
Though listening to a book may in some cases, be slower than your natural reading speed, it makes up for the loss of time by allowing you to use the time that would be otherwise wasted. For instance, you can listen to a book whenever you’re running, walking, driving, mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, playing a game, laying in bed, cooking dinner, etc. You can listen to a book anywhere at any time. Though listening works best whenever the task you are primarily doing is relatively mindless. The easier your primary task is, the more you will comprehend your book.
There is also another benefit that listening has over conventional reading. That is, audio book apps give you the ability to adjust the speed of the narration. For those who wish to speed up their consumption and train themselves to grasp concepts quickly, this is a great option. You can speed your narration up to 3 times its standard rate. However, I don’t recommend going past 2 times the average speed, as the audio quality severely diminished at higher speeds. I personally listen to my books at 1.5 times the average rate.
Recommended App
The app that I personally use and cannot recommend highly enough is Audible. It is an amazon run program with thousands of popular and even some not so popular titles. Most of the books I consume are audio books, and all of them are books that I bought using Audible. I have had an Audible membership for five years, and because of it, I have been able to read/listen to around 200 books. Before I started using Audible, I had been reading maybe one book a year. Now I am up to somewhere around 50 books a year!
If you would like to try Audible they have a free trial that will let you get your first book for FREE!
Click HERE To Start Listening For Free!
2. Digital Speed Reading
This path of digital speed reading requires more focus and discipline than the previously mentioned tactic. Digital speed reading is like speed reading with training wheels on. If you have ever looked into speed reading, you may well know that the practice consists of the following steps.
- Cutting off your internal narrator or your subvocalization.
- Training your eyes to follow the lines without regression.
- Widening your field of view to read more words at once.
- Increasing the rate at which you move between lines.
This results in you being able to read with exclusively your eyes and without the aid of subvocalization. Which as you will remember is a phenomenon where you narrated the book internally, reading it aloud to yourself. Reading with your only your eyes is allows you to read at rates 3 to 5 times faster than you usually could. This is because visual information is translated more quickly than auditory. Subvocalizing means you can only hear one word at a time, and you can only increase that process so long as the original sound of the word is intelligible. While you can visualize and comprehend more than one word at a time without sacrificing their intelligibility.
What is Digital Speed Reading
Digital speed reading, as I mentioned before, is like speed reading with training wheels. It takes the pressure off of trying to force all of the new speed reading habits onto yourself at once. It does some of the heavy lifting for you. Unfortunately, it cannot do the hardest part for you, which is getting rid of your internal narrator. However, it can help with all of the visual processes of speed reading.
This Is A Live Demo Of Spritz A Speed Reading App
In essence, digital speed reading is the process where you use an app to scroll through your lines for you. Most speed reading apps will only show you one word at a time. You increase the rate at which the app scrolls through the words until you reach whatever goal you’re striving for. I recommend starting out with a modest 400 WPM (words per minute) this is 100 WPM over the average reading speed.
Recommended app
I personally use two different apps; the first one is called Spritz. I use this one on my computer because it can be set up to run on any web page or file open within the browser. I typically use Spritz for articles, social media posts, and research papers. Spritz also functions exactly like the app I use for reading books. I use Amazon’s Word Runner app, which is built into their Kindle reading app. If you have ever purchased a book from amazon, it has most likely had this function. I have not got a book that didn’t have it. If you would like to use Spritz, they have a free version and a paid version. The paid version of the app will only run you 5$ annually. It is well worth the cost. The Amazon word runner app is a built in add-on to any amazon e-book.
If you would like to try out Spritz Speed Reading Click HERE!
If you would like to know more about Amazon’s Kindle Program Click HERE!
The Benefits Of Books
Reading has been happening since men have learned to write. I do imagine that we will ever stop the practice. Unless of course, that fateful day comes where we obliterate all that is human by creating a neuro access point for the uploading of information. A day that I pray never comes, and so long as it is not upon us, we will continue to read.
There have been great men who could not read and did not read, but they are far more infrequent than the great men who were avid readers. Some men were great, only because they could read. You can see this in this every wizard in every storybook, they were great because they could read. You have never heard of a wizard who could not read if there were a wizard who couldn’t read; he would cease to be a wizard. To be a wizard is to be a reader. The same goes for more real professions as well. To be anything in the modern world, you must be willing to read. There is so much information out there in every field, and reading is the most optimal way of consuming it.
Reading was the mark of understanding, and it still is. If you can become a reader and employee some of the methods that you might have learned in the course of this article, you can expect some of these enjoy some of the following benefits.
The Benefits of Reading
- Mental Stimulation
- Stress Reduction
- Greater Understanding
- Vocabulary Expansion
- Memory Improvement
- Increased Analytical Thinking Skills
- Better Focus and Concentration
- Developed Writing Skills
- Free Entertainment
In Summation
Now more than ever reading is essential. No matter what it looks like for you. Whether you are a formally trained speed reader, an avid audio book consumer, or a speed reader on training wheels, what matters is that you are making an effort to read more. There is so much false information out there, and unless you’re willing to do the heavy lifting and pick up the books yourself, you may never know the truth of things. So, I encourage you to employ the tactics of listening to books whenever you can and using apps to train your speed reading skills. If you do those two things, you will be able to read more, learn more, understand more, and thus you will be giving yourself a fighting chance against all of the popular lies.
Read so that you may know the truth and share it with others.
Awesome. I actually tried audible once. I have some books still saved but I had to discontinue because I wanted a book in my hand. I do still read some things online but without the audible app. Thanks for all the interesting suggestions. I learned a few things I didn’t know about reading apps
Thanks! I’m glad I could help! I do still like to have the physical books too.
I’m all about reading more, as long as my comprehension level doesn’t suffer.