How to read 462 books in one year

When Sarah Weinman, who writes our Dark Passages column, tweeted that she'd read 462 books in 2008, I thought it had to be a typo. Maybe she meant 46? 62? Either of those, about a book a week, would be respectable. But no, she really did read the impossible-sounding 462 books in 2008. Those 462 books marked a personal record -- she's been keeping a formal list since 2005. Below, she explains what it's like to be a super-speedy reader.

Jacket Copy: So how do you do it?

Sarah Weinman: I've been trying to analyze my reading method to see why I've almost always been able to do this (well, I started reading at the age of 2 1/2; I don't think I was speed-reading back then, but I became aware I could read fast when I burned through eight "Sweet Valley High" books in one evening when I was about 9.) A lot of it has to do with my music background. I studied voice and piano fairly seriously during my elementary and high school days, and as such, I became very attuned to rhythm and cadence and voice. So what happens when I read is that I can "hear" the narrative and dialogue in my head, but what's odd is that I'm both aware of the book at, say, an LP rate (33 1/3 revolutions per minute) but in my head it translates to roughly a 78. I've tried to slow this down, but realized that my natural reading rhythm is freakishly fast when an author friend asked me to go through the manuscript of her soon-to-be-published book for continuity errors. I sat in the La-Z-Boy at my parents' house with a pencil, went through page by page making notes but also enjoying the book, and had the whole task done in about 3-4 hours. This was a 350-page manuscript too, so roughly 80,000 words. Take away the pencil and the editor's hat and the reading speed would probably be close to 90 minutes. What also seems to happen is that I read a page not necessarily word by word, but by capturing pages in sequence in my head. The words and phrases appear diagonally, like I'm absorbing the text all in one gulp, and then I move on to the next sequence I can absorb by paragraph or page. It's like I'm reading from a whole-language standpoint instead of phonics -- that's the only way I can figure out how to explain it.

JC: Do you retain plot or characters best? Or something else?

SW: I retain characters more often than plot, but what seems to happen is that I latch on to specific moments, turns of phrase and dialogue as touchstones for me to recall what happened in the book. Kind of like freeze-frame. I've often wondered if the passage of time will make me forget what happened in a book, but more often than not, I'll pick up a book to reread and remember almost exactly what happened, the mood of the book, and how I felt at the time when I read it. If a book is great, there's an electric charge as I read the text and "hear" the voices in my head. But honestly, a lot of the books I read in 2008 were mediocre or forgettable, and if I hadn't been on a subway or captive on a plane or a train, I might not have finished them.

The difference in reading for work and fun - after the jump.

JC: As a critic, how do you make note of significant passages or things you plan to mention about a book?

SW: It depends on the venue. If I'm writing for the L.A. Times, for example, or especially for a venue I've never written before and thus want to make a very good impression upon the editor, I'm reading with an eye to review it critically, and as such, make note of quotes I want to use by turning down the top right hand corner of the page. And I try my best to "slow" myself down, but as I explained, once I get into a book's rhythm, my natural speed kicks in, more or less. If it's for the Baltimore Sun, with only 200 words per book, I almost never quote verbatim, so it's not as necessary to make note of specifics (unless there are those I want to make note of.) Otherwise, a whole lot of thinking and letting my head take over. I find there's a natural but frustrating gap between when I finish reading a book and when I start writing a review. I've tried to bridge it by starting right away, but I almost always have to throw out whatever I've written, whereas if I write the review during a dedicated time during the day (often after berating myself for undue procrastination ... so it goes) it ends up fairly clean.

JC: Do you also read for leisure? How is that different from reading for work?

SW: If I didn't read for leisure, I would go nuts. But it is different. When I read a classic crime novel by, say, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo or an older book by Richard Powers, it's less about keeping up with contemporary publishing and making sure I'm staying abreast of what's going on in crime fiction (or the New York literary scene, though I still haven't read "Netherland," so clearly I'm not one of the cool kids) than filling in necessary gaps or appreciating why certain authors count among my favorites.

JC: What were the longest and shortest books you read in 2008, and how many pages were they?

SW: Longest book was "2666" by Roberto Bolaño, and it was an irregular reading experience. I read the first four parts during a cross-country plane trip, reading at slightly slower than usual speed but surprised at how accessible the book was compared with "The Savage Detectives." I then did not pick it up for a week while I was on vacation and finally read part five in bits and bites by the time I returned to New York. I think the passage of time helped me to figure out what was going on with parts I-IV (which I thought brilliant) so that by part V, I'd made all the larger connections and appreciated what Bolano was trying to do -- which was, to my mind, show that there is a place of hell so horrible and unimaginable that even 900 valiant pages is not enough to explain the cataclysm of human failure.  Shortest book? Maybe Carlo Lucarelli's "Via Delle Oche," which I think is barely 100 pages. But I'm not sure.

JC: And finally, how many books have you read so far -- by Jan. 9 -- in 2009?

SW: I've read 10 books and am about 50 pages through No. 11. So still roughly a book a day!

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo credit: Athena's Pix via Flickr

Comments

[Mary Evelyn Lewis]

Oh, thank goodness! I'm not alone in the world. This is how I read as well. I try to explain it to people and receive blank stares and then the subject is quickly changed.

Thank you for sharing!

[Bridget]

When I was a kid the librarian wouldn't let me check out enough books to keep me occupied for the week, I finally convinced her after going to the library mid-week and reporting on each of the books I had checked out. I could have the adult amount then. I once tried to describe the way I read as vacuuming the page with my eyes.

[Maija Haavisto]

I used to read like this before I went to school (plenty of time!) and for a few years afterwards (no, not picture books but proper adult novels). Wish I could still do it. When I was in school I read about 3-4 times as fast as most other people.

[Jennie]

I once had a boyfriend (vaguely suspicious of my reading speed) watch me as I read. He described the same thing; it appeared that I read in "chunks" instead of word by word.
The best part, I think, is that it means that I nearly always have time to read new books I am interested in and old books that I love.

[Carol McMillan Lewis]

And I thought I was alone too! Thank you! In first grade, my teacher let us take home our book about two weeks after school started and I read it that night. The next day when I told her, she exclaimed, "Oh, Carol, you were only supposed to read the first chapter!" I had to sit there in reading group the whole year, bored to death, because I already knew what Alice and Jerry and little Sally were going to do. And in third grade, I asked my teacher to get me Little Women because it was too high on the shelf for me to reach - she refused and said I was too young to read it. I asked for it for Christmas and read it in a couple of days.

[david]

I read almost 300 books last year in almost the same fashion, and am reading almost all the time (when not working, of course).

[Chris]

Thank you for this! I have been wondering about how Sarah reads so many books ever since I saw that tweet. I was feeling like some kind of illiterate turtle.

[Katie]

This is exactly how I read!! I started reading at around 2 1/2 as well, and think that teaching myself to read (as opposed to learning to read in school, via more traditional methods) is what led to my freakish speed-reading abilities. When I was a kid, all the librarians knew me because I hit the library's book check-out limit (50) on a regular basis and would read adult novels at an incredibly young age (I first read Gone With The Wind in the third grade). To this day, I still read an incredible amount of books for fun (also around a book a day, at least, although I haven't kept a list) and am able to read and digest huge amounts of information in a short time, which comes in handy in my field (law). Good to know there's others out there like me!

[Girlfrom Ipanema]

It took me all afternoon to read this article. I'm jealous. I bet I can watch more TV than any of you though!

[Lois]

Phooey! A 350 page book is easy to read in about two hours, especially those romances or other similar light fare.

Besides, reading solely for speed takes the fun out of reading.

Does this woman think there is an Olympic category for reading the most books in a year?

What a bore!

[Quay]

Well I certainly dont read as fast as Sarah and have never really done a self-essasment on my style. I do remember on my eleventh birthday getting the Lord of the Rings trilogy and reading all three that same day. People almays think I am joking when I tell that story but it is quite true (I can still see some of the imagery in my mind 22 years later). Today, I dont get to read as much as I like to but by a rough average come to about 150 books a year. Often on a weekend I will easily read 3 books start to finish. On a trips across the states I have to pack 3 books (average fiction length) for the trip out and three for the trip back on the plane, since I will finish 3 before I land. I also keep a small collection of antique books. Thank goodness for the library, generous family friends with book store gift cards and used books - being a bibliophile can be an expensive way of life!

[Mark]

I can see the advantage in reading the necessary boring books quickly. But reading so fast must take some enjoyment out of a great book. I certainly wouldn't wolf down my favorite meal, or be so brisk intentionally during sex.

[arun]

you're probably the giant sucking sound i heard at the central library the other day. but then - can you go in reverse?

if you can read that fast, and if you could type at lightspeed, could you write as fast too, in effect leafblowing the words backout until you had oaked a book?

i cannot read as fast because often i have to re-read stuff just to understand it. i read one of those little semiotext books a while ago and it took me a month as i meandered in and out of the pages amid discussions and conversations with others in some kinda weird talmudic romp. in the end, of course, the journey was far more memorable than the completion of it.

[John Fox]

Wow. 462. That's incredible. But if you do it for your job, and if you don't watch television or movies, I suppose a fast reader could burn through quite a lot.

And I know exactly what she's talking about with the diagonal reading. That's exactly what I do -- I explain it to my students by saying it's the speed-reading stage in-between reading whole lines in a single eye-gulp and reading whole pages in a single eye-gulp.

But this last year I've forced myself to read slower to study sentences and nice turns of phrases, which can get skipped over, or at least not savored, when you're reading that quickly.

[pifie]

I can read fast (I didn't measure, sorry), but when I used to read for pleasure... all the fun was reading as slowly as possible and trying to get out all the possible meanings of it (in style, in references to the same book or another, etc).

Maybe i'm too much obsessed with the details, but in general i'm not interested in the "story" of the books so much as in what the author thought when he/she wrote that and what are the other meanings of the words that probably he/she didn't mean but can be understood as such.

[tony morabito]

Funny - I read in chunks, too. The principal at my grade school gave me a special dispensation (it was a Catholic school, OK?) to take out as many library books as I could carry at one time because I went through them so quickly.
I think the eyes & brain work as a scanner first, then a word processor in the background, so it's not necessary to focus on a word, line or even paragraph at a time.
Sadly, it's slowed a lot in adulthood since I can't just sit around reading all day - ah, youth!
tm

[Michael Bell]

Do you wear glasses? Does reading so much hurt your eyes?

[garth morgan]

any tips on learining how to read music?

[Rose Aylmer]

I'm a stay at home Grandma, retired attorney with similar reading habits. Today I read three books to distract myself while cleaning house. Did anyone else read their first books upside down? Started reading very young, wonder if that's why I'm so nearsighted.

[Brady Westwater]

It's amazing how many of us there are. I taught too myself to read when my mother read to me as a kid and always wondered if that had something to do with the way I read. The only books I did not read in a single - very long - seating were novels such as Remembrance of Things Past and the Count of Monte Cristo.

And I recall wanting to finish all the Hardy Boy books because I was getting to the point I was just flipping the pages. Until now, though, the only time I ever met anyone who read as fast as I was when I was sharing a book in class at UCLA . I sat back to wait for her to finish just as she leaned back at he same time I did. We both did a double take - and then plowed though book together...

[Brady Westwater]

And.... as the memories come flooding back.... my parents had to go to the local public library when I was in the first grade and get special permission for me to get an adult library card.

With some novels, though, I do read more line by line to savor the language. But when reading non-fiction books on subject I already know a lot about, I just skip the information I already know and only process the new material; that way I can knock off four or five books easily on history or urban planning when I jump over the parts I already know.

[Katie Colvin]

I, too, do this, and have never been able to put it to words. Weinman did a great job describing the method of a super-fast reader. I agree with another commenter, that it is because we are "self-taught" at a young age (2ish for me, too) that we have developed this method, rather than learning the method typically taught in schools. Because I have become used to reading so quickly, I have a huge problem having to put a book down before I finish it, and for longer books or ill-timed starts of books, I have stayed up very late just to get to the end, cause I can't not know how it ends before I go to sleep! I wish I had kept a list so I could see how many books I read last year, though I know the number would be at least 300. I will start my list for this year, so far at 12, on number 13.

[Ellie]

I am wondering how fast does she read books which must be understood, for instance a Chemistry textbook. And does the method differ?

[Sarah Weinman]

Ellie - textbooks are a whole other story. I haven't been in an academic setting since 2003 but I read them at a far, far slower pace than I do fiction and narrative non-fiction. Granted, textbooks are selected for setting down concepts and explaining them instead of exceptional prose style and readability, so the experience of reading and absorbing information is different as a result.

Michael Bell - Genetics is on my side; I have 20/20 vision and should be able to evade wearing glasses until my mid-40s, unless all the time I spend on computer erodes my ability to see properly. I do suspect that helps with my ability to read at a prodigious rate.

Garth - I learned to read music when I was young and it was "easy" to trick a plastic brain into figuring it out. But learning as an adult, I guess maybe start with a single phrase, like for the violin, and then eventually graduate to chords and multiple lines?

[acpaul]

Apparently a lot more people read the same way I do than I I thought. Too cool. I read so fast that Neal Stephenson's Anathem only took me a day.