I've always been a fast reader, faster than most people. I've read and reviewed 176 books in just over two years, or about two books a week. That doesn't count newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other online reading.

When I was 10, I had an operation on both my feet and I spent all summer with my legs in plaster. My mother had to go to the library every day because they'd only let her take out three books at a time for me. On the flight back from Ireland two weeks ago, I read two 500-page books. My personal best, though, was the long, long night that I read seven short novels.

I've known people who read faster than me, but not many. One friend at college seemed to read about twice as fast as me.

I just tried a couple of online reading speed tests, which rated me at 650-700 words per minute. One of the tests also indicated that online reading is slower than reading a book.

A reviewer for the LA Times read 462 books last year. I might be able to do that if I had nothing else to do. She talks about ripping through an 80,000 word book in 90 minutes. A number of the commenters claimed to be ultra-fast readers too.

I've never taken a speed reading course. I naturally developed a high reading speed. My comprehension and short-term retention is good. My long-term retention is not great, but this is equally true for movies that I've watched.

I think my high reading speed is why I have no patience for podcasts. I can read five times faster than anyone can talk intelligibly. Unless there's a lot of additional information in the soundtrack, such as music or an unusually talented delivery, I'd much rather read.

There are screen readers that will speak at triple speed for blind users: ‘To the untrained ear, the output is incomprehensible, but it allows [T.V.] Raman to “read” at roughly the same speed as a sighted person.’

Read on!

Emma had a chance to play with Jacob's Kindle (Amazon, Wikipedia) today, while I looked on.

The electronic paper screen is one of the big selling points. We found the text to be very readable, albeit black-and-white. It works very well for its primary use case—displaying book pages with minimal battery drain—but it's sluggish when updating menus.

I'm not impressed by the design of the case. The buttons on the side are far too big; the keyboard at the bottom is ridiculous. It would be interesting to see what Apple could do.

I've been using Stanza on my iPhone for the last couple of months, mostly to read Accelerando on the bus. I like it, though the screen is so small that I'm flipping pages every few seconds.

The thought of holding several months' worth of reading on one device is very tempting, especially as we're off to Dublin for two weeks. Physical books are heavy and they're bulky. We'll bring a number of books with us and come back with even more.

I read a lot online, but I prefer to read printed books. I am more likely to get lost in a book. Online, I am more likely to drift. Books have heft and tactile feedback. Good books are physically beautiful. The typography and layout contribute to a pleasurable reading experience.

Flipping through a book is not the same as scrolling through an e-book. There are subconscious cues that allow spatial navigation to be very fast in printed material. Orienting myself in an ebook is harder. Annotating and highlighting online material is difficult. I like to have a highlighter marker in hand when reading technical books. On the other hand, you can't grep dead trees.

I'm deeply skeptical of DRMed content and reluctant to buy content that I can't transfer to other devices of my choosing. I know that if I take reasonable care of a book, I will still be able to read it in thirty years' time. I am less confident of e-books in proprietary formats.

It's ridiculous that e-books cost as much as printed books. There are real costs associated with printing and distributing printed books. Publishers can make higher margins off e-books than they do from printed books and still sell them for less.

Emma is more enthusiastic about e-book readers than I am. It seems inevitable that we'll buy one, but not just yet.

Bloomsday is around the corner. As ever, we at the Wild Geese Players of Seattle are staging a reading from James Joyce's Ulysses, at the Elliott Bay Bookstore, 101 S. Main St, on Sat 14th June 2008 at 4:30pm.

In the Oxen of the Sun, Leopold Bloom visits the Holles Street Maternity Hospital and falls in with Stephen Dedalus and a crowd of drunken medical students, in a chapter that not only recapitulates the forty weeks of pregnancy, it also constitutes a tour through the development of the English language.

I play Stephen Dedalus, the second most important character of the book. In this chapter, it is neither a large nor a small role.

Behind the scenes, I was responsible for turning Joyce's text into a script suitable for a staged reading. A few months ago, I despaired of it. It was a daunting challenge technically, and we didn't have nearly enough readers. I'm happy to say that I found my way through the labyrinth of dramaturgy and a large crop of new goslings joined the Players for this year's reading.

Finally, let me repost a Google Ad that I saw beside one of our internal emails:

Natural Geese Repellent

Enviromentally Safe Unit Rids Geese Maintenance Free, Solar Powered

www.AwayWithGeese.com

Title: Variable Star

Author: Robert A. Heinlein, Spider Robinson

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Tor

Copyright: 2006

ISBN: 0765351684

Pages: 339

Keywords: science fiction

Reading period: 30 March-3 April, 2008

Joel Johnston is a budding young musician and the son of a Nobel-winning physicist, who gets engaged to Jinna, a fellow orphan, only to learn that she's the granddaughter of the richest man in the Solar System. Her grandfather, The Conrad, wants him to breed more heirs. In a fit of pique at the deception, Joel goes on a bender then hops on a colony ship to a distant star. Even at relativistic speeds, it's going to be a one-way trip.

Fifty years ago, Robert Heinlein wrote a short outline for this book, then put it aside. A few years ago, Heinlein's estate asked Spider Robinson to complete it.

Robinson has done a great job of writing another Heinlein novel, exploring one of his classic themes, a young man finding himself, and sounding very much like Heinlein himself.

Very enjoyable.

I found an interesting piece on the NPR website about the modern anti-abortion movement:

In the 1980s, in order to solidify their shift from divorce to abortion, the Religious Right constructed an abortion myth, one accepted by most Americans as true. Simply put, the abortion myth is this: Leaders of the Religious Right would have us believe that their movement began in direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Politically conservative evangelical leaders were so morally outraged by the ruling that they instantly shed their apolitical stupor in order to mobilize politically in defense of the sanctity of life. Most of these leaders did so reluctantly and at great personal sacrifice, risking the obloquy of their congregants and the contempt of liberals and "secular humanists," who were trying their best to ruin America. But these selfless, courageous leaders of the Religious Right, inspired by the opponents of slavery in the nineteenth century, trudged dutifully into battle in order to defend those innocent unborn children, newly endangered by the Supreme Court's misguided Roe decision.

It's a compelling story, no question about it. Except for one thing: It isn't true.

... 

Let's remember, [Paul Weyrich] said animatedly, that the Religious Right did not come together in response to the Roe decision. No, Weyrich insisted, what got us going as a political movement was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially discriminatory policies.

... 

"What caused the movement to surface," Weyrich reiterated,"was the federal government's moves against Christian schools." The IRS threat against segregated schools, he said, "enraged the Christian community." That, not abortion, according to Weyrich, was what galvanized politically conservative evangelicals into the Religious Right and goaded them into action. "It was not the other things," he said.

Excerpted from Thy Kingdom Come, by Randall Balmer.

I'm indifferent to most fantasy books, but I've been a fan of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, since I read the first book, A Game of Thrones, in 1997. I read the second book A Clash of Kings, in 1999. The third book A Storm of Swords came out five years ago, and I've been awaiting the fourth book, A Feast for Crows, ever since. After several postponements, it's finally out.

It's an epic tale of love, war, and intrigue. Five Kings are fighting for control, by sword, by guile, and sometimes by magic. Strange creatures are rising in the frozen North, beyond the Wall. Dragons are reappearing in the South. The young Starks, separated by fate and a cruel author, strive in vain to reunite. The Lannisters, mad and bad, seek to dominate.

I'm re-reading the series and rediscovering how good it is. The characters are clearly drawn, the plotting first rate, the writing excellent.

George R.R. Martin is on a book tour of the U.S. and appears at the University of Washington Bookstore on Monday, November 21st, at 7pm.

The Wild Geese Players of Seattle strike again. This time, we're counterposing William Butler Yeats against Walt Whitman, the Dueling Poets. We're leading off the evening with some real dueling between fencers from the Academia della Spada.

Fri, Nov 18, 8pm
University of Washington Faculty Club

More details here.

On Saturday, I bought Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at CostCo. On leaving, the checker told me that I had bought the 887th copy at that store. This was 1pm, three hours after opening, so they were selling at the rate of five per minute.

I started reading it last night. After two chapters, when I had seen far too many references to earlier books that I didn't recall, I decided that it was time to re-read the earlier books. I'm a fast reader, but I don't retain material very well.

In the first chapter of the first book, I came across an ironically prophetic statement, made by Professor McGonagall as she and Professor Dumbledore are leaving Baby Moses, er, Harry on the Dursleys's doorstep:

He'll be famous -- a legend -- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future -- there will be books written about Harry -- every child in our world will know his name!

This of course was written when J.K. Rowling was an unknown, when the thought of her being a millionaire, much less a billionaire, was unthinkable.

I've been a fan of both Bernard Cornwell and Patrick O'Brian for a number of years. Both are known for their historic fiction set in the Napoleonic Wars.

Cornwell has written 20 books about Richard Sharpe, a rough and ready British Army officer, up from the ranks. Cornwell excels at writing battle scenes, capturing the smells and sounds, the noise and confusion, the blood and the gore. Some of them were turned into a TV miniseries in the mid-1990s, with Sean Bean as Sharpe.

O'Brian wrote 20 novels about Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin of the Royal Navy. The Russell Crowe movie Master and Commander was based on a couple of the books.

I recently finished the latest Sharpe book, Sharpe's Escape. Near the end, there's an advertising section, which says

and The Economist proclaimed Bernard Cornwell, "The direct heir to Patrick O'Brian."

Nonsense! They're both fine writers, in their own ways, but O'Brian is a much better novelist than Cornwell.

The Sharpe books are fun, but formulaic. Sharpe makes an enemy, usually an officer on his own side or the other side; Sharpe is bloody-minded and stubborn; Sharpe fights battles; Sharpe gets laid; the enemy (usually) gets his comeuppance. Thomas of Hookton (The Grail Quest series) is just Sharpe with a longbow instead of a rifle. Cornwell is capable of more ambitious work, such as the Arthur books, but most of his writing is simple adventure fiction.

There's plenty of adventure in the Aubrey-Maturin novels too, but O'Brian is a much keener, more philosophical observer, who brings depth to his characters. Patrick O'Brian's naval mastery does a better job of elaborating on this than I can.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Wed, 11 Jun 2003 03:54:21 GMT)

I have recently become involved with the upcoming local celebration of Bloomsday, on June 16th. James Joyce's Ulysses takes place on June 16th, 1904. In Seattle and elsewhere, fans of the book re-enact portions of the book. In Dublin, Joyce has spawned a whole industry: ironic, when you consider how little recognition he received there during his lifetime. No doubt, the Joycean industry will go into overdrive next year for the centenary.

The Seattle group has been working its way through the book since 1998. This year, we are reading Chapters 8 and 9, "Lestrygonians" and "Scylla and Charybdis". I had been vaguely aware that readings were held every year, but I hadn't been to any of them. Two weeks ago, I saw on the Seattle Irish News mailing list that more readers were needed, so I decided to apply. I am reading Dennis Breen, Dixon, the barman in Burton's restaurant, and Tom Rochford in Chapter 8, and Mr. Best in Chapter 9. The reading will start at 8pm on June 16th, at the Brechemin Auditorium at the School of Music in the University of Washington.

Chapter 8, "Lestrygonians", describes Bloom's peregrination through the center of Dublin. He crosses the Liffey and heads south towards the National Library. Much of the chapter is Bloom's stream of consciousness, as he observes people and places along the way. He runs into a few acquaintances and ends up in Davy Byrne's pub to eat lunch.

Chapter 9, "Scylla and Charybdis", takes place in the National Library. Bloom is briefly observed in the background, but doesn't say anything. Stephen Dedalus, Joyce's young alter ego, is the subject of this chapter. He holds forth in a long discussion of Shakespeare and Hamlet. As usual, he's witty, erudite, and not a little insecure.

As a Dubliner, you might expect that I have an affinity for the book. I first attempted to read Ulysses in 1982, the centenary of Joyce's birth, when I was 17. I gave up after a few chapters, finding it heavy going and obscure. I've tried it again a few times since then, but have never got more than a couple of hundred pages in to the book.

I'm trying once again. This time it's going better. No doubt, because I have a motivation. But also, it makes more sense to me. I've learned two tricks. The first is that if a section doesn't make sense, don't give up. Keep going. It'll get more enjoyable. I don't think it all makes sense to anyone on a first reading. The second is that the sounds are very important. Joyce was a poet. Subvocalize the odder bits and the music will come through.

Someone once said that Ulysses is the most difficult of the entertaining books and the most entertaining of the difficult books.

I'm looking forward to the reading.