I consider reading itself - a state of art. It not only takes a skillful author to produce a great book, but also a skillful reader to comprehend it. “The dear good people don’t know how long it takes to learn to read. I’ve been at it eighty years, and can’t say yet that I’ve reached the goal” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Here is some traits, a good reader, in my opinion, should have:
A masterful reader must know how to extract from a book everything valuable it can offer. From different kind of innovative thoughts to simply learning new words.
Reader should adapt his reading method to each book. Someone who doesn’t know how to do that, will quickly run through “Einsteins’ theory” with the same pace he is used to run through his morning news paper.
What do you think? Do you agree? If so, what else would you suggest to someone who wants to improve his reading skills?
Thank you. What you said very much resonates with exactly how I feel about books. Your comment made me think about a crude analogy to add; let’s assume we have a big barrel filled with water. If you take a stick and start stir the surface area, only the portion of water on top will move. As you gradually lower the stick more water stirs with it. As you reach the bottom the whole barrel will move with a stick. Same with books; the more elements of mental life getting involved in work during reading, the stronger a connection between a text and what we have in our mind and feelings, and the deeper a reading.