earlier this week, i received an email from a coworker’s brother.
said coworker has been out of the country visiting that brother and i’ll admit it, my heart stopped when i realized who the email was from. i was so nervous to read the letter (because it could only contain bad news, right? why else was he contacting me?), i processed only about every fourth word of the email. i was skipping and searching and looking for the bad news.
it took about three read-throughs until i understood the gist of the email, which was that there was plane trouble in amsterdam and coworker would not be back to work thursday, but rather friday.
phew.
but the way i read that email got me thinking, because i’m normally a very through reader. i don’t often skim, as i like to savor the words and the worlds and the characters and the stories i’m reading. even work emails. i don’t want to miss anything important.
that said, i did find myself skimming through a series recently. a very popular series that i never should have read and never would have read if it wasn’t to satisfy my curiosity as to why EVERYONE was reading it. the writing was bad, the characters flat, and the situations disturbing (to me at least), but the first book ends on a cliffhanger and i’d made it that far i had to know what happened next, so i read the second one, and hell, i’d read that far, i might as well finish the dang series.
it wasn’t worth much more than a quick read through because a lot of what goes on is repetitive and if you breeze through, you won’t miss anything, which only reinforced my decision to read without paying much attention. i don’t like that i did it because everything i read (good, bad, mediocre) is a learning tool and i fear i raced too fast through that lesson.
(don’t make me go back through it again! nooooooooo!)
have you found yourself skimming through anything lately or do you take your time when reading? or perhaps you’re a constant skimmer and so you re-read things in order to make sure you digest them properly? why do you skim? or if you’re on the other side, why do you rarely skim? do you like skim milk? how about skim boarding? how many other ways can i use the word skim?
Abigail Mumford 
I love skim milk! :) I don’t like skimming books — not fiction, anyway. I like to read everything! Unless it’s truly awful, in which case I’d probably just give up. I do often skim news stories though, so I guess it comes to the reason I’m reading something…
you are very admirable in your ability to stick with a story! and skimming news stories is more than even i do. oops. i should probably take that up.
When I notice myself skimming a novel, I usually just stop reading entirely (unless it’s something I HAVE to read for some reason or another). Heck, there’s not enough time for me to read the stuff that really grabs me as it is. I’m not going to sacrifice the good books for the sake of finishing a bad one. :)
But, like Adriana, I will skim news stories for the pertinent bits.
this is true and this is something i’ve started doing in the last year or so. i just don’t have time to read even the things i want to that i can’t afford the time if i’m not enjoying something. it’s slightly liberating. :)
At this stage of life, if this first few pages don’t interest me, I don’t read the rest. love, Grandpa
yes, i’d say you’ve earned your skimming stripes. :)
i recently did a lot of skimming as well…and it was that exact same series (and by series i mean the first two books. i probs wont read the third…but mayhap i will just to see how it all ends…eh…probs not)
if i read the third one, YOU must read the third one. #miserylovescompany