I’ve initiated the art of flash reading. I started with a group of art books that I displayed on a spare coffee table in a hallway.
Here’s how it works (for me). I put a spare set of reading glasses in a tray on the hallway coffee table. And very important for flash reading, I put a supply of 3×5 index cards in the tray to serve as bookmarks.
There is a straight backed chair next to the coffee table. En passant, I may elect to sit in the chair and read one page out of any book on the coffee table, chosen more or less at random. After I finish the page, I put in a bookmark in that volume to mark my place.
You can derive a lot of value out of reading even one page from a book. After a while, the bookmarks started to accumulate, like bees or butterflies, in the books on the coffee table.
I found the flash reading on this coffee table so enjoyable, that I started placing other books on the table that weren’t art books. Basically any book that I was interested in dipping into.
But now, a pandemic of flash reading has been spawned. I decided to flash read from anywhere in my library. So the bookmarks will accumulate all over…since I want to keep my place and I have books everywhere!
Eventually, I’ll be reading about 200 books at the same time. Will I be able to keep track of where I am in each book??
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Looking forward, I can dream of reaching an event horizon where I am reading 20K books at one time! Or alternatively, I could just sit down in a quiet place and read one book from beginning to end……
Which book would that be?
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