By The Way...

If you hang about Amazon or Barnes & Noble's Web site, you may have notice that one reviewer seems to have reviewed nearly every fiction book on sale: Harriet Klausner, who claims to read up to five books a day, and then post reviews of them on those site among others (heck, she's even reviewed my novel: "a terrific tale of a belligerent future in space," she called. Well, okay!). She's enough of a phenomenon that the Wall Street Journal just did a piece on her: Here it is.

One does wonder, if she reads five books a day, how she has time for, say, work, or food, or even oxygen; I myself have hardly time for any of those three, and I'm lucky to get through a couple of books a week.

If you could read five books a day, would you?

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• #12 Comment from valphish 
  3/31/05 12:12 PM | Permalink

  I've heard about speed-readers like this, but you know, I don't think I would enjoy reading five books a day, or even one.  I like to "live-in" a book for awhile.  If that makes sense.  Sometimes I am sad when they end.  Gee, one hardly has time to experience the book before starting another.  I wouldn't want to watch five movies either, or listen to five new CD's.  Too much input!
  http://journals.aol.com/valphish/ValsThoughts
• #11 Comment from cyndygee 
  3/30/05 8:36 PM | Permalink

  For me, the question isn't COULD YOU?  It's WHY WOULD YOU?!?  She's really reading and comprehending?  Could old Harriet be sneakin' into those infamous Cliff Notes?
  
  As you mentioned, how about a life outside books!  Books enhance one's life tremendously, but when one lives only vicariously and not REALLY . . .   alas, poor Harriet, no one knew her well . . .  she always and I mean ALWAYS had her nose stuck in a book - she eats with one hand, drives with one eye and one hand, cooks with one hand  . . .   what else is she doing with one hand!?! LOL
  
  Cyndy
  http://journals.aol.com/cyndygee/TheRealWorldofcyndygee
• #10 Comment from hopelessblondie 
  3/30/05 7:59 PM | Permalink

  No. I wouldn't be able to digest the books or fully be impacted by them.
  Vickey
  http://journals.aol.com/hopelessBlondie/VictoriasJournal
• #9 Comment from pandorasbazaar 
  3/30/05 6:52 PM | Permalink

  I suppose I could read five books a day if it was lousy, predictable, formulaic fiction. But real literature? Heck no. I couldn't and wouldn't want to. Good literature is meant to be taken in slowly, experienced with the mind and the soul, not flipped through like a cheap magazine.
• #8 Comment from jdbell52 
  3/30/05 4:18 PM | Permalink

  Yeah, I used to be able to scream through five books in a day. As long as they were not philosophy or math and I had nothing else I had to do. Natural speed reader with high retention, I taught myself to read at about three years old. I also found out that learning to read like that made you a natural poor speller and your pronunciation was haphazard at best.
  
  Given a vacation day with three new hard backs from SF Book club and a couple of interesting mystery paperbacks and I can still do it. Of course I spend the next week eating dry cat food because I did not fix the Imac, do the laundry and mow the backyard. And I get to sleep on the couch all the time too!
  
  Sigh. I had it sweet buzzsawing through the library back in '62.
  JD