I love to read, but I hate to read
Written by: Sean Dean on September 20, 2018
I love reading, but I hate reading. Now, before you start questioning how those two statements can exist simultaneously, let me explain. Even though I am a slow reader I enjoy reading, especially when it is something that I am interested in. I am not sure if it is because of what I am reading or how I am reading, but I feasibly only have forty-five minutes, at most, to read before my head flops back and I am out like a light. As you might imagine, this makes finishing a book a struggle. Additionally, I have this sense that I am not doing anything while I am reading, which (more often than I would like to admit) discourages me from picking up one of the books in my pile of books to read. That is why I can say accurately that I love to read, but I hate to read.
Given the effect that reading has on my ability to be awake it seems, at the very least, unwise that I would choose to take up a degree that is based almost exclusively in processing and synthesizing what I have read. The idea that I would finish a book that has 300 pages in three days is laughable, and as such the irony is not lost on me that book that teaches us how to read better would need to be skimmed. Thankfully, my issues with reading have helped me to develop some skills to process books quickly without have to read them through. At present they are a bit rusty having not been used in fifteen years or so, but I am feeling them come back to me.
Tables of contents and indices have become my friends. Being able to narrow down where what I need to learn will likely be located has helped me more times than I can count. Tables of contents have a good way of helping to sketch out the basic structure of what a book is about. I believe this is what Alder and Van Doren call x-raying the book. Knowing the underlying structure not only allows you to find the information you are looking for quicker, it can also help you to understand the structure of the author’s argument. I have found that if I can find where the author states their premise and where they state their conclusions I can sometimes skip over their reasoning that connects the two. If the conclusion seems to not follow the premise then you can go back and fill in the reasoning, but frequently enough that is not needed. Unfortunately, reading for understanding generally means a deeper dive into a book and that means spending more time with it.
My wife tells me that the reason reading is difficult for me is that I feel the need to read every word in every sentence. She is right, when I read I am actively processing every word that I am reading. It seems that the first lesson I am to learn in this program is how to read for understanding without having to process every word in the many books I will be reading in the next three years. This also means I will likely spend a lot more time with Alder and Van Doren than I have been able to grant them over the last few days.
I’m with you Sean. I love learning, but reading is not my friend, it’s hard work. I discovered long ago that we all have unique ways of retaining information. A good friend, who completed is medical degree with more ease than is morally praseworthy has an idetic memory – he remembers everything he reads – once. I, on the other hand, can remember most of what I hear in lectures and conversations – I don’t need to take notes, and when I do, it’s my own thoughts about what I’m hearing. Finding you’re primary memory tool is a good thing. I appreciated Adler’s book for that reason. It helps to make the a learning chore more accesible when it doesn’t come naturally.
Digby, I am so intrigued by this concept. Do you know of a way we can find our primary memory tool?
I had the same thought, Sean. How do we read a book about reading in three days? It will definitely be a handbook I keep near me over the next three years.
You gave a concise overview of a process I am making myself engage to x-ray a book as I, like you, struggle with not reading every word. Let’s keep encouraging each other!
Sean,
Since necessity is the mother of invention, you have been forced to acquire reading skills to overcome your attention limitations. Thanks so much for sharing a very practical utilization of inspectional reading. Adler’s different levels of reading are so helpful to applying different levels to different books in different settings. Thanks so much for sharing what works for you, H
Ha! I have the same challenge. I am a slow reader and tend to read every word. Since I know this about myself, I actually started reading and scanning the required reading for this class weeks before it started.
I don’t mind reading, it’s the writing that I don’t like. Will we have a book to read that’s titled “How To Write Well?” or more specifically “How to Write 1,000-Word Blogs Well?” I’d want to read that book.
Something that I am learning throughout the first few weeks is that I have limited time to complete limited tasks. Those tasks are certainly for the program we are all a part of, but also for the church I serve, the volunteer and community work I do, on top of prioritizing my family. For me, no matter the task, the clock has also been a big player in my reading . . . not because I fall asleep, but because I need to get certain things done by certain times.
Great post.
I think at the beginning of my Master’s program I was in your same boat. I hung on every word in every book I was reading and found myself frustrated at not being able to keep up. As I was talking with my pastor about it he said something that freed me, and it was this, “not every word is as important as some words, find what you need then proceed.”
I think this is the same concept that the book presents and as you stated in that if you find the premise and conclusions and they answer your questions you have done the work you need. If not and you need more time on other words then that’s ok too. For me, it relieved the pressure of reading every word, and I pray it does the same for you.
Oh man, this was so good! I may be a fast reader, but I certainly read every. single. word. I have to! It feels so harsh not to! In my mind, the writer took the time to write that word so it must mean something! But this book, and the three day time limits, gave me the harsh reality check.
I remember the first week of class, I had figured out that I could do this, I thought to myself, “I can totally read one book in a few days, no sweat.” Then I realized that was only for ONE class. I still had 20-30 books to annotate for our other class! I nearly lost it right there. I remember telling my husband just how impossible this was. He gently reminded me that it is possible, it’s who God created me to be, and to get to work.
I am glad we get to “get to work” together!
Thanks for your candor Sean! I’m definitely with you on having learned some good skills and plowing through books for my undergrad and masters, but it has been a number of years now and those skills are rusty! The other new problem (opportunity?) since I last studied was that books are now digital. And while that is fantastic in terms of weight, I’m struggling to implement some of Adler’s recommendations/my old school habits for note taking. How do we adapt to the digital age when it comes to X-raying a book? So often my first pass would have been mostly about looking for chapter titles, headings, different fonts and then intro and concluding paragraphs. But I’m finding this a much more difficult strategy to implement on kindle. Maybe as a tech savvy guy you will have mastered this more quickly than I have!
You know the funny thing is, I still prefer paper books. Pullinger was, and still is, the first book I’ve read on a Kindle. I suspect we’ll learn to “appreciate” the e-book together.