Why I've always been a slow reader

 Greetings and welcome to my third blog on this subject. Last time I looked at why I prefer to write and today I'm looking at reading - the flip side of writing. It's assumed that most authors are voracious readers. I do love to immerse myself in a good book but I have an ambivalent relationship to books. It takes me a long time to read a book and the longer the book, the longer the sentences and the smaller the print, the longer it takes me. I need to take it in. Skimming doesn't make sense to me. I might miss a crucial part of the plot, plus I like the sensuality of words which is maybe why I like literary fiction and poetry.  It’s also about quality and not quantity. I probably read about twelve books a year on average, about one a month, give or take, and so I always have a reading backlog. This is why you’ll never see me anywhere near things like Goodreads challenges. Ever seen those? To read so many books in a year? They scare me senseless! 

(Video post mostly the same, plus discussing three books still to read from my birthday.)

Also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PzbXB5VUKSQ

I dread being given long books to read because I know it'll take me ages and if it's part of a series I will get a rising panic although I have overcome that a bit more in the last decade from reading a couple of series from a couple of my favourite indie authors. Book length isn't always a good indicator. Lightness or heaviness of the content can impact as can style, number of words to a page and size of print ans well as how heavy-going the writing is. If there's a lot to think about or sentences are long, while I may admire the style and like to reflect on what they've said, it still worries me how far behind I’m falling before getting on to the next book.

I’ve  always read every word and taken a long time to read even though I learned to read early.  At one point I was ahead in my class, and got more than one school prize which was always a book or books. When I was seven or eight they chose a prize book for me but I never read it. At least, I read the first few pages but I couldn't concentrate on a full length book or take it in. It wasn’t a book I'd chosen for myself. I was fine when I went to the library and if I was totally absorbed by a book I'd read it from start to finish, like a book I borrowed from the library called The Cat That Walked All Week. I also loved some stories in the girls’ comic Bunty too, two of which inspired my books many years later as I wrote about in the blog below:

http://bubbitybooks.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-taming-of-teresa-how-bunty-story.html

When I won my next school prize I was a bit older and it was deemed that we were old enough to choose our own books in the book shop. But I just couldn't find a book I wanted to read. I remember wandering around the shop with my mum but I just couldn’t find anything. Then my eyes alighted on a cookery book which my mum discouraged me from getting. This wasn't what the prize was for. It was for something to fire my imagination. She didn’t actually say this but I think this is was what I gauged from her. So, although I've spent a large part of my life living in my head and fantasy worlds, I think there are limits and difference to the autistic imagination. Mine, anyway. In the end I eventually picked out a book on how to draw animals and one on fancy lettering. My mum must have thought these would at least develop my artistic skills though I don't remember making great use of them other than to look at the pictures. 

I'll leave you with a quote from an article on neurodiversity which clicked with me:

"For some people, it is verbal (words) information whether written or oral that is processed slowly. If you have slow verbal processing, you will find it difficult to understand spoken information and reading will be slow even if there are no problems with processing visual information.

However, it is possible to find it difficult to process oral information, but still have good auditory processing abilities for other information that you hear, such as music. Others will find reading slow and difficult because of difficulty processing visual information but will have no difficulties with oral information and will therefore much prefer audio books to reading..."

You can read the full article in the link below which shows just how complex it is:

https://aspiedent.com/index.php/blog/what-slow-processing-autism-neurodiversity

That's all for this time. But please do leave any comments below - if you can't log in to your Google account or don't have one you can post anonymously but if you want to sign your name or first name then at least I'll know it's you!