Lately I’ve been posting a number of book reviews. I thought I’d say a few words about that. There are two reasons and I’ll start with the boring one.

Most beginnings tend to be hard, and picking up blogging has been no different for me. Coming up with ideas to write about is quite easy, but finding time is a constant struggle. So I have been reposting some book reviews I wrote on Goodreads a little while back. It makes sense for me to post these reviews in my own space, but it also means that the blog is getting updated without me getting practice writing, which was the reason I picked up this project in the first place.

The second reason is more interesting thought: I read a lot of books these days. Much more than I’ve done at any point in my past. I’ve never been a very fast reader, and this has always discouraged me from reading a lot. Now, I’m trying to learn the technique of reading more quickly and remembering more of the content at the same time. I think I may be getting there, finally.

Another motivation for reading is that I was fed up with watching Youtube. This has been a pastime I’ve enjoyed over the last few years - watching gaming content on Youtube. Not to a ridiculous extent, but probably around 20-60 minutes most days. I don’t regret this at all, but I decided that I’d like to try spending that time in a more productive fashion.

By coincidence, at some point during the summer I started browsing Goodreads and seeing what my friends were reading. Some of that stuff was absolutely fascinating.

But as it turned out, I didn’t even need new inspiration for good books to read. I already had a very long “to-read” list. So I trimmed that down and added a few items, and then I just started reading from the top.

I’ve been going throught mostly nonfiction. But I will throw in the occational novel (Ready Player One, Legion) and I use those to practice my reading skills. It is not crucial that I understand or remember every detail in every novel I read, so I’m okay with forcing myself to read them faster. If I nail this technique, I’ll be able to spend less time on each on each book while remembering more from it.

The book I finished most recently is The Checklist Manifesto (which was quite good), and for this book I made a conscious effort to read more quickly than I otherwise would have. I can say for sure that I remember as much (if not more) from it as from the other nonfiction I’ve read in the recent past.

As has been my intention since restarting this blog, I’m going to make an effort to write about the things that are of special interest to me at any given moment. Right now, one of those things is reading books. I’m taking an interest in both the actual books I read and in the process of reading.

I have this feeling that most of the people I know has read tons of stuff, and that I have been missing out. That is probably not accurate, but I still want to try what it is like to be someone who reads a lot. At least for a while. Who knows, maybe I’ll decide to go back watching Binding of Isaac runs on Youtube.