I don’t read more, b/c I watch too many Steve Donoghue KZread videos.

I wish I had my bodily health. I have a degenerative disability that has left me largely immobile and wracked with both chronic fatigue and chronic pain. I genuinely don't have "time" to read most days as my body will leave me in a daze unable to focus, or in a position such that reading would trigger a migraine or seizure. It's extremely frustrating. What time I do have has to be rationed on important basic tasks, like personal hygiene, household chores, food prep, etc. I also love watching films, playing video games, and writing my novel. I haven't been able to do those things either. I was able to pick ONE to prioritise, so I've been focused on writing for the last 4 months. Not even switched on a video game since October. Barely watched more than 1 film per month in the last year. Only read 2 books this year and I started one of them in December; it makes me feel so angry sometimes. I know I'm an edge case, but I wanted to vent. Hope everyone here gets to read all the books they want to this year. Thanks for listening to, (or I suppose reading) my ranting.

The people who've told me they don't have time to read always manage to watch plenty of TV which I point out. They don't want to make that trade of watching for reading which is fine as long as they understand the choice is theirs.

@michaeldallaway1988

4 ай бұрын

I'd say reading is a more active, taxing endeavour than TV. If you've had to drive into work, do a tough 9-5, cook meals, look after the family etc I can absolutely understand why someone wouldn't have the mental energy to read literature and reach for the remote.

@jshaers96

4 ай бұрын

To paraphrase HG Wells, it's all about application: specifically, the application of the seat of the trousers to the seat of the chair.

@battybibliophile-Clare

4 ай бұрын

I have been making time to read and play an instrument for 74 years now. I have always put those two things first in life, after earning a living. It has been a daily strategy and now in retirement I do chores, watch a few KZreadrs in the morning and most days start reading after lunch and on till sleep time, with a brief break for a walk and dinner. I was advised to prioritise the "good stuff" as there are so many good books that there is no need to read trash. I have stuck to that and have eclectic tastes, history, classics both ancient and modern, biography, criticism , and essays. I totally agree about notifications and sub-vocalisation. I have a Onyx boox tablet, which although colour and has access to Play Store, is dedicated to reading. It has Gmail for those sites that send ebook links by email, and access to the internet. All notifications are off and, apart from security apps, all apps are for reading. For other stuff, I have a Samsung tablet which is off when I am reading. I am a very selective watcher of TV and am seriously thinking of dumping it. I never watch more than an hour, and most days none.

@LaurieInTexas

4 ай бұрын

​@@michaeldallaway1988I agree that life is busy and can make you too tired to read. I am sometimes too tired to read after work or an otherwise busy day, but it isn't true every day. We all make choices and sometimes it's tv watching. But I agree with Steve that people who say they never have time to read are not truthful. They don't have time every day possibly but never isn't true.

The internet and cell phones have played havoc with my ability to concentrate.

The best observation on reading more I ever read is that the key is doing less of other things.

Recently retired and exchanged work day for a read and walk day. Read for fifty minutes then take the book's ideas for a short walk. Inhabit the text for a week or a month and treat it like a vacation. It is my dementia preventia program, as important as my work week used to be.

Always a fun topic with an easy answer. Just look at what you do each day, and you will find time to read or do something else you like. There are breaks or downtime at work. I always sneak in some reading then. Get up a little earlier and read. When you find yourself scrolling through the usual garbage on your phone, stop and read. Once you get into the habit, carving out extra time to read gets easier.

I always make time to read. I usually either to read in the afternoon or at night before I go to bed. Been doing this routine for years now. 🙂❤📚

there's an interesting psychoanalytic pleasure in saying 'I simply dont have time', its a quick toss-away self-excuse, theyre not trying to pull the wool over your eyes its moreso that they don't actually want to read -- of course we could always hyper-refine our time to "Maximum Efficiency" but its more like they enjoy saying they want to read more but dont actually -- also, people will categorize their time as 'winding down' periods from work or stress etc where they dont want to do the hard work of reading

@avoidbeing

4 ай бұрын

also, there's an interesting video by Chad Haag called 'How To Read A Book A Day' that adds more technical info like how to actually get that subvocalization down: not reading words but "idiomatic groups": collocations, idioms, phrasemes that you see all the time but can begin to group instead of reading word by word

@saintdonoghue

4 ай бұрын

Well, obviously I don't think anybody needs to read so much that they start skipping words!

The way I read more is to have my kindle with me all the time and to grab it instead whenever I would normally grab my phone. Eating lunch, breaks at work, waiting in car line for kids, waiting in line anywhere, up at night with kids. Just that time every day is at least an hour, and some days multiple hours. Add to that a couple hours every night before falling asleep and my January 2024 reading was a quarter of my entire 2023.

Sound advice, Steve. Thanks!

Stephen King mentions that audiobooks are great for this. You can sneak in a little here and there. Also great for drives and doing housework.

I turned off notifications 4-5 months ago and, after a week of adjustment, I felt far more free than ever before. If nothing else, that advice in here is profoundly solid.

Great video, Steve, I also love this whole topic. Love that you brought up subvocalization too, ever since I first heard you talk about it I've slowly been training myself to stop, and I've made good progress. I'm choosing to particularly put most of the progressive effort into books i feel are more rereadable to my tastes, like for instance the Sylvia Plath journals, which I am still reading.

I don't sub-vocalise when reading English, but I do when reading my native language. Native language books take me thrice as long to read, even though I'm equally fluent in both.

Great video, Steve. You are absolutely right about the theme of distraction. I actually have started putting my phone far away from me when I am reading at home. I also love your idea about reading what we want to read. I have to say that BookTube (which, of course, can be a distraction in itself) has helped with that; I've delved deeply into so many more genres that I really love to read since I've been hanging around here. Thanks for another thoughtful video.

Very interesting Steve! Another great video,that’s why I don’t understand people reading on mobile or tablet,to many distractions.keep them coming mate.

People get tired & they’re working more hours, multiple jobs. I used to get migraines on Saturdays. This could easily be a critique of the working class., I do read every day before work & after but then I grew up reading. My parents both were avid readers. When I lived with a man he would pressure me to to clean when I was reading. Either you value reading or you do not. I can’t read now without audible + a book. You are right you have to make it happen.,

I'm still terrified about not enjoying a book if I stop subvocalizing. "Well did you try?" Um... No.

@folksurvival

Ай бұрын

Subvocalizing is good.

I started to wean myself off of social media (minus BookTube) a few weeks ago and last week I read seven books. I know that amount is absolute child's play for some, but it was the most I have read consecutively in eons. I have a social media ban for Lent (for funsies) and my plans for library and Net Galley books are underway. I feel excited by reading again just by giving up mind garbage.

But I was told endless hamburgers as long as you remove the bun? Great video, Pavlov strongly approves.

Really interesting video.

Great video! I have tried before to stop subvocalising and I take nothing in when I don't subvocalise. I wonder if anybody has any tips on how to practice this? maybe read an entire chapter, and when you realise you've retained nothing, just go and read it again, maybe 2 ,3 or 4 times? And do this every day with a new chapter for a month? Curious if anybody has any tips on this.

You've given golden advice here... Not just for books, of course, but suitable for combatting all types of negative life habits... My only concern, Stevie-O, is that you are not getting enough sleep at night because you are reading when Nature says your two eyes should be shut... Still, your Book and Life advice is on the mark - Self Control is what it's all about.

Interesting point about sub-vocalizing. Never thought about it, but I can't remember that I ever did this. Maybe I was born a natural reader ;-) There's just one exception, in the early phases of acquiring a new language, I actively force myself to read out loud, or to do 'shadowing', i.e. listening to an audiobook while reading out loud the printed text. It surely slows down the reading speed, but it's an extremely powerful method to improve your listening and reading comprehension as well as your pronunciation in a new language.

I'm not sure about Steve's comments on subvocalising. The examples he gives are forms of reading that have a certain amount of predictable content - it's hard to apply that discipline to reading Buddenbrooks or The Four Quartets, in my experience.

Hi, Steve. Is subvocalising necessary when proofreading? I understand the benefits of switching it off when reading for pleasure, but what about work? As someone who works in copywriting and content marketing, I can get through a lot more when turning it off, but I worry it increases the chances of letting one of my writers get away with a typo or passive voice, putting me in the coldest of sweats. Great video - thank you.

@saintdonoghue

4 ай бұрын

Well, ACTUALLY vocalizing - reading aloud - is vital for any kind of proofreading or checking your own written work. Your ear will catch problems your eye just misses

Do you have any tips to break subvocalization? Also, what's even the alternative to subvocalization?

@bradwaller7057

4 ай бұрын

I would love to hear from others about their path from subvocalising to not-subvocalising. Personally, I'm somewhere along that route in that I don't hear echoes of each word on the page (if I were to hear words at the speed I read, it would sound comically sped up), but at the end of a sentence, if I stop and think about it, there is still some shade of an auditory imprint for several of the (typically key) words. Do others experience this effect? Is the next/final step just to take a leap of faith into the silent void and push a little faster to prevent even those shadows from appearing? Any advice for sticking through the early stages of anxiety that you've missed everything in the text? Sadly, when trying to find real talk online about the process of shedding remaining subvocalisation, I find I'm just inundated with bro-tube Evelyn Wood clones trying to make a buck.

@dplol_

4 ай бұрын

@@bradwaller7057 So when you read, do you just kind of glance over the sentences and your brain picks out keywords? After Steve pointed out how it's so ingrained in us from a young age, it made me realize that I can't even picture a way of reading without subvocalizing.

@bradwaller7057

4 ай бұрын

​​@@dplol_ I find that when I try to read faster than my comfortable pace, what drops first are the smaller words (articles, forms of be, etc.) but that I still retain pretty much the same comprehension because frankly, it's rare that those carry much semantic weight or shift the meaning of a sentence more than slightly. I tend to be more aware of the jumps/saccades in this mode, and unless I'm mistaken, I do fewer of these and rest slightly longer on each one, taking in at least the visual impression of a phrase or small group of words at the same time. (Note: for me there's always a danger of letting the jump rhythms take over, as if my eyes are snapping to an internal metronome while attention might wander if it isn't consistent. It takes some effort not to do that, but it's something I've gotten better at over time. Curious if this happens to other people trying to push beyond their comfort zone) For the few words in my visual focus at any time, I don't get the feeling that I'm processing them through an auditory pathway because the time they're in focus doesn't last long enough to hear them in sequence. (And hearing them simultaneously sounds even more comprehension-destroying than anything else mentioned in this whole comment section. :D) So what I'm wondering is whether a small sequence of words, taken in visually, is inevitably going to activate the neurons associated with their pronunciations so that, even if I'm not hearing them in my head as I read, I still have the impression at the end of the sentence of something auditory having gone on and thus tell myself that I still subvocalize to some degree. Incidentally, some of this overlaps with a book I read last year that I first learned about on this channel when Steve book hauled or mail hauled it called The Science of Reading by Adrian Johns. Curious if anyone else (or @saintdonoghue, who I'm sure did) read this and what they took from it.

Ok I just started practicing reading without sub vocalizing. It is very unnatural and I feel like I am rushing myself to read at 2x speed. It’s the only way to stop saying the words for now. I might need to keep practicing…

@ganchen6257

4 ай бұрын

Plus practicing this with A.S.Byatt’s “Possession” is not easy

If you have depression and you consider yourself a reader, you might be like me. I gauge my depression partly based on my motivation to read and ability to absorb information.

I've only recently realized, as far as I know, never subvocalized when I read. So, i gave it a try. Couldn't do it. It was like trying to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Sure, you can try with some effort but why would you.

I have no problem with time or distractions, but I drink way too much and it prevents me from accomplishing my reading and writing goals.

@PerfectHandProductions

4 ай бұрын

@jasperantonelli4822 Most definitely. I need to get it under control.

@PerfectHandProductions

4 ай бұрын

@jasperantonelli4822 Yes, it's something I need to work on.

@saintdonoghue

4 ай бұрын

I've known so many people who told me the same thing - that the amount of drinking they did stopped them from doing all kinds of things they wanted to do. I strongly recommend taking steps to get it under control!

@BooksForEric

4 ай бұрын

When I drank, drinking itself was the distraction - and not just a distraction from reading or writing....

@PerfectHandProductions

4 ай бұрын

@@saintdonoghue Thanks Steve

Reading is not a competitive sport... despite Goodreads targets and Booktubers reading prodigious amounts... quality trumps quantity...

Ugh. Yes it’s subvocalizing that’s my problem. 😫 M-F I can dedicate 2 hours to reading (yes I’m going nonstop from 5am walking the dog, getting ready for work, work in tech, come home fix/eat dinner then clean up and open the Kindle by 6:30 or 7). And if I don’t have coffee in the afternoon I will get sleepy reading… I DO dedicate the time. Weekends I dedicate a good 4 hours each day. But need to learn to not subvocalize. How?! 😭

@folksurvival

Ай бұрын

Why is it a problem?

@socaltoobie8984

Ай бұрын

@@folksurvival Subvocalizing? Just makes you read slower. Is it a problem..? Good question. I guess if you have a bunch of books you’re anxious to get to it will just take longer. 😊

I have been a voracious reader since I was ten , all my life untill sometime in my fourties when I went for nearly a year reading less and less . Then - I got myself some glasses ! I am BACK again. And I absolutly agree : es passiert nichts Gutes, es sei denn, man tut es

I started watching this video but I got distracted...

i could be wrong...but i think reading is actually sub vocalising the written word. i can't see how you can read without subvocalising....i don't even understand the concept... word recognition is actually the act of subvocalising in my opinion.

@saintdonoghue

Ай бұрын

You are indeed wrong! You yourself read without subvocalizing every day!

@runthomas

Ай бұрын

@@saintdonoghue I will most certainly try to notice this happening, as it is clear that you are somewhat of a reading expert.

If it wasn't for the fact that I watched videos on How To Read More, I would have more time to read. It's a vicious whirlwind of a catch 22

Not to subvocalize does sound to me like a kind of hack!

@saintdonoghue

4 ай бұрын

Hah! No, it's not a hack - it's natural way your brain works!

@materiagrix

4 ай бұрын

@@saintdonoghue I don’t know about my brain… I even subvocalize when I see Stop signs haha!

You must have learned to read just like the rest of us. When and how did you learn to stop subvocalizing? I have found it difficult.

@saintdonoghue

4 ай бұрын

I never subvocalized, but oh my, I sympathize with how difficult it is to stop!

@ludvanbeethoven1

4 ай бұрын

If you’ve never subvocalized how can you know how difficult it is to stop? Or even if it is possible to undo it

This video begs the question: How many hours of Skyrim does Michael K. Vaughn play per week?

@saintdonoghue

4 ай бұрын

Hah! I'm betting the number is zero! He's a legitimately busy guy - which just proves my point: look at how much he nevertheless manages to read!

@ericdavis5791

4 ай бұрын

Sure, but never let the truth get in the way of a good story.@@saintdonoghue

Where is a good place to read a book review online? Of both new and old books. Call me dumb but I just go to Amazon and read the 5 stars and 1 star reviews sifting out the ones based solely on delivery. There must be a better place with multiple reviews on a book. I'm reading a so called fantastic book and the writing is just terrible

How to read more? Turn off your phone and watch less youtube:)

25:40.. How ironic you talk about how bad, bad an addiction is when you clearly don't do anything but read, and make videos...just replacing one for another.