Transpersonal Psychology discussion

I read ink on paper. If it's something I want to study, I'll read three times: skim, then a read-thru, then a deeper reading. Then there's reading as contemplative practice, such as lectio divina . These days, I've made a 1 to 5 ratio in my reading: I practice what I read five times as much as the time it takes to read it.

I read once for pleasure, in silence, usually cover-to-cover as close to non-stop as I can, in an effort to enjoy the text and my first impressions. I then re-read to pay closer attention to the structure, technique, references. If I find the text worthwile, and complex, I then re-read specific passages. Not many texts get this much attention from me these days, but I find that the ones that do give me more pleasure and reward than anything other inanimate thing.

I never skim anything other than a newspaper — but then I don't have much access to English-language texts here in Hungary (because I find reading an electronic screen gives me eyestrain).

Thanks for asking :)

I look at a page for 5 minutes and check the clock and a whole day has passed. haha!

Really it seems these days that I read as if I'm being read and I have a conversation with the author and take notes as I go as if I were chatting. I can barely keep from loving my books in a way that doesn't make them very nice for reselling. Notes are all over. I also like to get the Kindle, eBook, and audio versions all together. Those have notes all in them too. I am not able to skim most books. I have tried and retain nothing with that method. I might only have some success with that for very well organized text books.

I really like the elastic sense of time in facing a page for five minutes that's really a whole day. It suggests the page as a liminal space between time & no time ... maybe. I don't know.

I totally love the confirmation of reading as dialogue. (Why else read?!) A friend of mine has a running argument with Truman Capote over the ending of The Headless Hawk, for instance.

Note-taking links over to the parallel topic of re-reading: do you re-read your notes? (I tend to think I will but it takes discipline to do so .) I have never used kindle or audio so am gobsmacked to know know they accommodate notes.