Hello, Sunday Saloners! It's been a while since I participated in a Sunday Salon, but I'm in the mood to ramble on about various things in my reading life today.
First of all, I am incandescent lately because the weather is finally getting into the 60s and 70s. I'm like a flower: when it starts getting warm and sunny, I come to life (actually, my theme song is "Coming Up"). That means I can go outside and read! More reading means less time for blogging, but I'm not getting too worked up about that. I can blog when it's cold.
As for what I've been reading, lately I've been having trouble connecting to characters, and I'm bothered by the cynicism in many novels. I am so tired of heroines that seem to have no emotions, dreams, or self-awareness. I'm also starting to realize that I'm more than a bit of an outlier. It feels like I'm never in step with the latest trends, and when I am my opinion goes against what the majority thinks. Not that it matters a lot (I'm not going to change my reading habits any time soon), but as far as blogging goes, I've been feeling more isolated in recent months. As much as I love writing down my thoughts on novels, there's something to be said for having the freedom to react to a book in any way you want without having to defend what you feel about it.
ANYWAY. It's warm! What else am I up to? I started a new blog with Melody from Redeeming Qualities called Liquid Persuasion this week. This one is devoted to cocktails and is on Tumblr. I know I need another blog like I need a broken leg, but this blog isn't dedicated to books, so it will be at a different speed than my other two blogs and shouldn't add too much to my schedule.
Source: Staples eReader Department
How fast can you read? Trish from Hey Lady Watcha Reading posted this week about a new web app that measures how fast you can read on an eReader. This is a fun thing to play with, but I was perturbed by the fact that the app designers related speed of reading directly to education levels. In the results, they place respondents on a sliding scale of grade schoolers to college professors. I read 34% faster than the average adult, yet my score is below high school level. How does that make sense? Are they implying the faster you read, the more educated/intelligent you are? Or that most adults read at grade school levels? But then how would you get a higher score for college students--wouldn't it be the same?
Also, reading speed depends on what you're reading. I read non-fiction much faster than I read fiction, because I've trained myself to speed read it. With fiction, I read a lot slower because that's my "fun" reading. I read novels more for the experience of reading them, to get to know different characters and be transported to another place, and for me that's worth the time and attention to read slower. With non-fiction, I'm looking for information, so it's easy to identify what I need and speed through the extraneous stuff.
In any case, the app is really interesting and I definitely recommend you check it out. Feel free to share what your score was!
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