Slow Reader

Listening to NPR Morning Edition interview with explorer Ann Bancroft about favorite books. (You can listen to it here.) The interviewer asks what books she re-reads, and she says she rarely re-reads books because she's a slow reader and finishing one is such an accomplishment. She adds that that might be why she does a fair amount of underlining when she reads so she can go back and re-read more selectively.

I found this interesting because that's me. I read slowly. I've tried to increase my speed with all the usual techniques, but I go back to my slow default over time. Like her, I love reading and I do a lot of marking up in the books I read. I also listen to a lot of books, and what makes that hard is I can't underline. But I find it okay as a trade-off because I simply wouldn't be able to get through as many books otherwise.

Bancroft tells another really interesting story about reading Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl on an expedition. The expedition leader wouldn't let them bring any books but he said she could bring one as long as she tore off the covers and each page that she read to lighten the load along the way.