1) lol. That's kind of how I felt reading the novel. I just remember continually thinking, WHY ARE GIRLS ATTRACTED TO THIS GUY!? It's creepy creepy creepy.

2) Appeal of Kristin Stewart? lol. I assume I'm one of her bigger fans for a male, and I'm not sure what that even means.

3) Eh. That seemed fine. Sparkling is cute and all.

But yeah, the critics are probably being overly harsh. MY opinion will matter.

She is a girl of many faces. Sometimes pretty, sometimes yukky. That's cute, though

Well, this is pretty much an exact description of reality, so I can see how some people could relate to it.

Do you guys have any tips for improving reading speed?
I have many books on speed reading but was wondering if there was anything specific that worked well for you?

I'm rereading the Harry Potter series. So much fun.

Promise yourself you won't let yourself pee until you finish a chapter. Worked for me in college.

lol. When I think of it that way it makes sense I guess. I tend to try to avoid this description of reality (that is, I try to avoid making nonsensical choices and choosing to associate with "trouble characters", which is all Bella does).

I'm seeing Twilight tomorrow at noon, so I'll be reporting back in the movie thread and probably in this one.

This does not work well once you pass the age of fifty--or if the book has really long chapters.

Lit critic Harold Bloom, who seems to have both written and read nearly everything, claims to be able to read a thousand pages an hour--without speed reading. I have a friend who can do close to three hundred pages an hour in a typical novel reading at her normal speed. She has no idea how she does it; she just reads like erveryone else but much faster.

John Cole,

Harold Bloom is intelligent, but is a pretty zany nut.

Agree?

John --

How many Brooklyn Bridges have you bought from Mr. Bloom and your friend?

I've seen my friend in action. She directed our writing center, and one time a student complained to me that she brought a paper to her to read but she only glanced at it. I had to tell he student she did read it--only she reads really fast. After that, I told my friend to wait a bit before offering comments on papers because the students don't think you're reading them.

During the intersession, I saw her go through three novels in an afternoon.

It is always best, in my opinion, to go to the source. Why not ask Mr. Bloom himself?

http://www.yale.edu/english/profiles/bloom_h.html


Harold Bloom
Sterling Professor of the Humanities and English
WHC 202 | 432-0029 | harold.bloom@yale.edu


SELECTED PUBLICATIONS: Harold Bloom is the author of many books, including The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, Agon: Towards a Theory of Revisionism, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, How to Read and Why, Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages, Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, A Map of Misreading, and Hamlet: Poem Unlimited. He is also co-editor with Lionel Trilling of Romantic Poetry and Prose and Victorian Poetry and Prose.

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES: Shakespeare and the Canon: Histories, Comedies, and Poems; Art of Reading a Poem.


-Zeno

PS - That is my answer by the way. I'm not speaking for John, who is quite capable of expressing his own views.

He's very good on some stuff--poetry and Shakespeare--but he's a bit of a nut when it comes to the Bible.

Five pages a minute for your friend is 12 seconds per page. Hard enough to believe. But Bloom's claimed thousand pages an hour equals more than 16 pages a minute or 2.8 pages per second. Merely turning a page takes about that long even if you don't bring your visual focus to bear on it.

Harold Bloom is a god. Just let it go at that.


-Zeno

Haven't read the whole thread, but has anyone read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, I just started it tonight, I think it's pretty good...

Mr Cole,

We're all well aware that "very fast" readers exist.

Did you know that Mikhail Tal, former world chess champion (and youngest ever up to that point, at 24 years of age), used to go over 1000 chess games a day, well before the computer era, and supposedly also memorized them?

I'm not sure how any of this helps us mortals tho

There is a thread dedicated to that book.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Finally finished House of Leaves.

I think this may be the worst book I've ever read.

The Navidson Report itself is the interesting part of the story. Just this I'd give maybe as high as 4.5/5 stars. Fascinating and truly spooked me a few times.

Knock it .5 star for all Zampano's stupid citations and footnotes, I don't care if he made them up.

Knock it 1 star for all the rediculous parts where Zampano goes into the symbolism of what Navidson chose to photograph, or what Karen said, or whatever. These could go on for several pages and I would usually just skip ahead to get back to the narrative.

Knock it another 1 star for the fact that Johnny Truant even exists in this novel. About 1/4th of the way through the book I literally stopped reading anything in the courier font (basically any of Johnny's footnotes). His story was just...Zzzzzzzz. I don't even know what happens with him in the end. I read the Wiki and it seems like I didn't miss much.

The best and in my opinion only part of the book worth reading is the narrative describing the Navidson Report. Would make a great movie. Sadly the book seems to be bigger on the outside than it is on the inside.

2/5 stars.

Bostaevski, expect backlash, my friend.

SSHE I want to ship more books wif da poker vip club

hehe yeah i went and read the House of Leaves discussion thread and was pretty surprised that so many people liked it.

Are the books in the Twilight series appropriate for an eight-year old? I need some recommendations for my elder daughter. She reads constantly and I'm near the end of my rope on stuff for her. I'm kind of guessing not, but I don't know diddly about the books. We try to limit her exposure to sexual themes, but that's about the only real limitation.

R&G are dead is good. I read that many years ago and quite enjoyed it. Is it beyond obvious that you need the proper background to read it?

I'm embarrassed to admit but I haven't read this yet...

Please don't ostracize me