Reading: Leisure vs Speed

My library is not one of those modern well-catalogued libraries where you can search for your books on a computer and then find the exact rack where you will locate it. Its a small lending library with rows of racks dedicated to various types of books. I don't like visiting my library.
I start looking for the book I need and sweat starts trickling down my forehead. The librarian sees me wipe it off and turns on the fan in my section. I look at him and smile. He possibly thinks the ventilation is inadequate. He is wrong. I turn back to my section and the agony is back. The trouble is not in the search of the book I need. The actual torture is to see all the books I have not read. To see so many books worth reading and yet having to choose just one is truly an intimidating task.

Leisure Reading
The problem I find out is the speed at which I read books. I am the kind that likes to soak in the words from a book. I devour each sentence. I delve into each sentence that explains a character and start picturing him/her. I have to put myself in every actor's shoes. I start painting every scenary the author tries to explain. I have to feel the place in my mind. Maybe that is what everyone calls as Leisure reading. It takes me days together to finish mid-sized novels. The full fledged big ones take weeks or even a month. I dread picking them up.

Speed Reading
At my office, my boss picked up some book to read. I just glanced at the name and continued my work. In an hour, I look at him and he is lost in the book. A glimpse at the book and I get a shock. He is about to finish the book. A couple of minutes later, as he put the book aside, I started my interview. He actually read through the whole of 300 odd pages in an hour. Speed Reading is something he can do on just about any book. It is just when you feel down on knowing such things that you get to meet even more people of the ilk! People reading the whole Harry Potter series in a month, people reading 1000 page novels in a day! Aah! The jealousy.

Categories
Novels, fiction, non-fiction books have a certain similarity in the manner in which they are written. You get a grip of the writer's style and soon you start completing sentences even before you read them. The story unravels automatically even before you've read it. Maybe speed reading is easier on Fiction. The technical books are the worst of the lot. I can never get around them. They need to dealt with a different manner altogether.

Oh! How I wish I could grasp the elusive art of Speed Reading. So many books to read. So much to learn. So little time.