Think about the upper part of the pyramid of reading speed, which is beyond the limit of the human eyes.
The top vertex A of the pyramid is the most extreme reading method “not to read.” If you do not read, it does not take any time. Instead, you can not get any information.
B is just before the extreme. A book commenting on B is ”How to talk about books you haven’t read.” A Professor of Literature, Pierre Bayard wrote it. Pierre discussed each of the three norms followings:
- There are books to read.
- When you read a book, you should read through the book.
- You need to read book X if you talk about book X.
Are those norms truly correct?
The interesting thing in Pierre’s argument is whether it is possible to distinguish between “read” and “not read” clearly. He classifies “not reading” into four.
- ❶ A book that you have never read
- ❷ A book that you have heard from other people
- ❸ A book that you have read roughly
- ❹ A book that you have read but have forgotten
No matter how much time you spend reading, you can not read all the books in this world. The time of your life is limited.
Whatever book you read, you lose the opportunity to read another book which you could read in the spent time. Reading a book is a choice. How do you get the information for this choice?