In defence of reading slowly

An acquaintance told me proudly the other day that he had "read" more than a hundred books last year. When I asked how, he explained that most were fifteen-minute summaries he had listened to on an app. I do not want to be unfair to him; every route to knowledge has its value. But on the way home that evening, I found myself asking what reading actually is.

Learning a novel from its summary is a little like experiencing a song through a transcript of its lyrics. You know the plot, you can name the characters, you can say how it ends. What you miss is what the book does to you: days spent inside another mind, stopping before a sentence to read it again, looking out of the window after a page to think.

The speed of reading is the speed of thought

Slow reading is not wasted time. It is time set aside for thinking itself. When we read without hurrying, we enter into a kind of conversation with the text. We argue with the author, scribble in margins, underline a line, return to a paragraph weeks later. That conversation is where information turns into understanding.

Some books are written not to be finished, but to be lived in.

In my years as a literature teacher, one of my favourite lessons was spending an entire hour on a single poem with my students. They grumbled at first: "Miss, this poem only takes a minute to read." But by the end, as they debated why each word had been chosen, the change in their faces was one of the great rewards of teaching.

Of course, not everyone has long hours to spare. Between demanding jobs, childcare and long commutes, even half an hour with a book can feel like a luxury. Perhaps the point is not how much we read but how. Truly reading five books may leave a far deeper mark than skimming the summaries of a hundred.

That is why the revival of reading groups in recent years is so encouraging. These small, unhurried circles, meeting weekly to discuss a few chapters of one book, show that slow reading can become a shared pleasure. Publishers and libraries that support such gatherings are making one of the most meaningful contributions possible to reading culture.

In many parts of life, speed is an advantage. But rushing through a book is like running past a beautiful view. Perhaps the quietest form of resistance available to us today is simply to open a book and give it the time it deserves.