Hey guys, it's Kirsti, welcome back to my
channel. Today, I want to do a little bit
of an update on a video that I made
probably, like, 18 months ago and that is
about how I read so much. The original
video was called "How I read 290 books in
9 months", and I have a love-hate
relationship with that video. When I made
that video, I had about 300 subscribers.
And the vast majority of them were
people from the We Blog We Vlog
community as it was then - it's now the
WeVlog Collective. But they were mostly
VEDA people and I knew all of them,
because it was a VEDA thing - we watch each
other's videos all the time.
I had basically just started doing
Booktube as, like, that was what I was
going to do with my channel.
I think I'd made about 3 or 4 weekly
wrap ups when I decided I was going to
make that video. So when I made that
video, I was talking very specifically to
those 300 people, all of whom I was
friends with. I definitely never
anticipated that that video would become
my most viewed video - I think it's now
got something like 16,000 views?
Which is ridiculous because if you look
at the videos on either side of it,
they have like 90 views or 300 views or
something like that, and then you've got this one in
the middle. And the comments that I
get on that video even now just
frustrate the absolute shit out of me,
because the comments that I get tend to
go one of a few different ways. I either
get the "how many pages an hour do you
read?" comment. I get the "you're lying"
comment. I get the "you must be reading,
like, nothing but graphic novels and
picture books" comment. I get the "you're
reading wrong, let me tell you how"
comment. And I get the "you mustn't be
married and have children" comment. So I
kind of want to do a little bit of an
update on how I read and the ways that I
read because, again, I'm on track to read
more than 400 books this year and it
freaks my students out, I think, to know
that I read more books than there are
days in the year and that I've already
read more books than there are [have been] days in
the year because they just... they can't
quite process that. And it seems like a
lot of people who watch my videos feel
the same way. So I want to preface all of
this by saying that my intention in
making this video is not to be, like, look
at me, I'm so great, look how many books I
read. I'm literally trying to explain how
I do it, because people constantly ask me
how I do it.
Similarly, I'm not trying to tell you how
to read more and how to be a reader like
me because I'm up on this pedestal. I'm not
anywhere. I don't give a flying fuck how
many books other people read. If you read
more than me, great. If you read one book
a year, that's awesome! I'm super proud of
you for reading. Like, you do you, I'm
gonna stick with my lane, okay? Cool. So
there are three key things to understand
here. The first one is that I am
naturally an incredibly fast reader. As I
said in that video, I have always been a
reader. I taught myself to read when I
was 3 or 4, my earliest memory is of
reading. I do not experience book
hangovers. I do not really experience
slumps. Like, my version of a slump is
a week where I read five or six books. I
also never go a single day without
reading. Like, it boggles my mind that
people can do that. To me, reading is like
breathing. It's just something that you
have to do to survive. I can't get to
sleep at night if I don't read. I feel
wrong if I don't read. So reading is
something that, like, I basically
physically have to read to survive.
That's a little bit melodramatic, I know.
But that's kind of how it works for me.
So yeah. I'm an incredibly fast reader.
When I read, I don't have to break down
words into their kind of individual
chunks.
I don't read words as single words when
I'm reading. I read, like, three-quarters
of a line of text at once. So when I'm
reading, if you watch my eyes when I'm
reading, my eyes move once across each
line of the page. Particularly if I'm
reading on my Kindle. I read faster than
if I'm reading in print form. If the
print is small or if it's nonfiction, I
do read a little bit slower but on the
whole, my eyes move, like, once per line. So
it takes me probably like 20 seconds to
finish a page. And no, I'm not speed
reading.
I'm not skimming. That is just naturally
how I read. In addition to being a
naturally fast reader, I am always
reading multiple books at a time. I never
have just one book on the go. So at the
moment, I'm reading three books at
present, I'm about to start a fourth one
as well. So I usually have three to
four books on the go. So there's usually
one non-fiction book and a classic and
then I've got, like, a new book and a
reread, usually.
It's a bit different at the moment
because I'm doing a readathon, so the
rereads have kind of fallen by the
wayside in favour of all of the books I
have to read for the readathon. I do
read picture books, but I don't count
them towards my reading challenge. For
those of you who don't know, I am a
school librarian. I work in a library
that is Prep to 12, so we have kids from
the age of 5 to 18 and, you know, I do
library stuff all day. So sometimes I do
read picture books as I'm shelving them,
or I skim through the graphic novels. But
I don't count those towards my reading
goal because, like, they don't count as
books that I've read, I was just kind of
skimming them for fun before I stuck them
on the shelf, I didn't sit down and
actually actively want to read that book,
if that makes sense. So I have no idea how
many pages I read an hour. It honestly
depends on the kind of book that I'm
reading. If I'm reading nonfiction, it's
probably, like, 60 to 80 pages an hour. If
I'm reading fiction, particularly young
adult fiction, it can be up to 200 pages
an hour, probably more. If I'm reading
classics, it's a bit slower, if I'm
reading rereads, it's sometimes a little bit
faster depending on what the reread is.
All I can tell you is that I read 90
pages of Jane Eyre in half an hour on
the tram, so do with that information
what you will. The second thing that you
have to understand is I make time for
reading. I think this is a thing that a
lot of people struggle with. They seem to
just think that, like, you know, reading is
just a thing that happens. But it's like
anything else: you have to make time to
do it you have to want to do it. It's not
just something that happens magically.
Like, if you want to play football, you
go out and play football. You don't just
sit at home going "Oh man, I wish I could
play more football...", you fucking go and do
it. Like, as I said, I literally cannot go
a day without reading. It makes me feel
icky and wrong and I cannot sleep if I do
that. Even when I am insanely jet-lagged
or insanely busy, I still read like 50
pages a day because that's just what I
need to do. So when it comes to reading, I
probably read for about three hours a
day. It takes me an hour each way to
get to work on public transport.
I read the whole way there, I read the
whole way home. I have 12 reading classes a
fortnight and I read during those
classes. Like, I talk to the kids for 15
minutes and then I help them find books
and then I read for probably, like, 25
minutes or so. So I have that time. I read
on my lunch break. I sometimes read when
I get home from work
if I'm really sucked into the plot of a
book, I will, like, read it while I make a
snack before I go and work out and I
read for like half an hour, 45 minutes
before I go to sleep at night. So all
of that over the course of the day adds up to
probably, like, three to three and a half
hours of reading time.
So yeah, if you're reading for 21 to 28
hours a week and you naturally read fast,
you're going to get through a fuckton of stuff.
And the third thing that you need to
understand is that I am a massive
introvert. Like, I think a lot of people
think that I do all of this reading and
I also have, like, a really active social
life. Yeah, no. I really really don't. I
cannot emphasise enough how much I do
not have a social life. I have a bunch of
family events every month and then I
have, like, maybe two or three actual
social events that I attend every month.
Other than that, I am at home in my
pyjamas reading a goddamn book. Because
if you say that there is scale of
introversion from, like, extrovert to
introvert? I am here. I am literally here. I
am at the extreme end of introvert. And
working in a library you may think is
great for introverted people. But no. It is
effectively a customer-service role and
you are dealing with people all day.
I have 1200 students that I deal with on
a daily basis as well as probably, like,
200 staff. At the end of the day, I don't
want to talk to anybody ever again. I
need to go home and sit in the dark and
recharge my batteries or I cannot
function the next day. And reading
is what helps me do that. So all of that
basically boils down to "I read a lot
because a) I read fast, b) I make time for
it, and c) I hate people". So, like, if you
want to read more?
Stop going places and make time for
reading. I can't help you with reading
any faster. Maybe try audiobooks. They
don't work for me, but they might work
for you. If you have any questions about
any of this, please let me know down in
the comments, I would love to talk about
it with you. Do you read multiple books
at a time? Are you strictly a one book at
a time kind of a person? Do you find you
read faster on an e-reader than you do
in physical form?
Do you like audiobooks? Do you hate
audiobooks? Personally I hate them. They
don't work for me, it's not my thing.
Do you love them? If you do, let me know
what you love about them and how
the narrator impacts on your love of them.
Because I've tried a couple of
audiobooks and, like, one of them I could
not physically stand the narrator and I
gave up about two minutes in and the
other narrator was Lin-Manuel Miranda,
so of course I loved it... Thank you guys
so much for watching,
I love all your faces and I'll see you on Friday.
Bye guys.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét