On reading slowly

There is a particular pleasure in finishing a book and realising you remember almost nothing of the plot but everything of how it made you feel. Speed-reading strips that away entirely. The eye passes over the words, the words register syntactically, but nothing settles.

I have been trying, this year, to read fewer books more carefully. To stop at a sentence that is beautiful or strange and sit with it. To let a good paragraph do what it wants to do, rather than rush past it towards the resolution of the chapter.

Reading slowly is not the same as reading passively. If anything it requires more active attention — you notice craft more, you argue with the author more, you become a better reader.