Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Reading Advice
Recently, Constructive Curmudgeon offered some advice on reading in two parts -- here's the rest. He is an advocate of "slow" reading. That would frustrate me. Now don't get me wrong, I love reading - do quite a bit of it, but, I love taking in as much information as I can as rapidly as I can.
For example, I loathe books-on-tape - it's just too slow. I can read much faster and retain much better using my eyes rather than my ears. The lack of ability to annotate is part of that, but I think it is because I organize information in my head visually, and unless I am taking notes when listening, I have no visual reference to retain the information.
Having said that; however, I do not mark up books a lot - I find that they are the record, why do I need to make a record of the record? It is a bit different if I am reading for specific research purposes, then I want to mark the stuff relevant to what I am looking into, but if I am reading a book simply for general information, then nah.
Why am I boring you with all these details? Simple. Groothius' primary point, that reading is good, and reading matters is one I agree with and want to pass on. Sometimes I am afraid; however, that his usally curmudgeonly and pendantic manner will be dissausive to some. Reading is individualistic and varies based on the material and purpose for the reading.
I, like the good Doctor, would strongly recommend the Adler book, but if I read everything I read using the methods Adler describes, I would not get much else done.
But the bottom line is this. Books are the ultimate record. They will not be replaced. As yet, technology has not devised a means of really presenting a book that is as physically comfortable as the printed, bound word. Books examine their topic in a depth unavailable to any other medium. Even fiction weaves a story to depths and examines characters at a level not possible through visual medium. Technology will add to books, it may end up transmitting them in a different way, but it will never replace them.
Get the book habit now, and enjoy it.
Related Tags: books, reading, information, methods, time
For example, I loathe books-on-tape - it's just too slow. I can read much faster and retain much better using my eyes rather than my ears. The lack of ability to annotate is part of that, but I think it is because I organize information in my head visually, and unless I am taking notes when listening, I have no visual reference to retain the information.
Having said that; however, I do not mark up books a lot - I find that they are the record, why do I need to make a record of the record? It is a bit different if I am reading for specific research purposes, then I want to mark the stuff relevant to what I am looking into, but if I am reading a book simply for general information, then nah.
Why am I boring you with all these details? Simple. Groothius' primary point, that reading is good, and reading matters is one I agree with and want to pass on. Sometimes I am afraid; however, that his usally curmudgeonly and pendantic manner will be dissausive to some. Reading is individualistic and varies based on the material and purpose for the reading.
I, like the good Doctor, would strongly recommend the Adler book, but if I read everything I read using the methods Adler describes, I would not get much else done.
But the bottom line is this. Books are the ultimate record. They will not be replaced. As yet, technology has not devised a means of really presenting a book that is as physically comfortable as the printed, bound word. Books examine their topic in a depth unavailable to any other medium. Even fiction weaves a story to depths and examines characters at a level not possible through visual medium. Technology will add to books, it may end up transmitting them in a different way, but it will never replace them.
Get the book habit now, and enjoy it.
Related Tags: books, reading, information, methods, time
