A few months ago, I was at a Starbucks with a friend. When the barista asked for his name, he said “Galt”. I said, “What name is that?! Your name is Rob!” He explained that he read a book long ago that had this character named John Galt and the book changed his life. I thought how interesting. I asked, “How did it change your life?” He said, “It got me looking at the world differently. It’s kind of hard to explain. You really need to read it.”A strong favorable recommendation from a friend is all I need to hear to motivate me to want to read a book.
The name of the book is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I wonder how many of you have read her work. I had heard of Ayn Rand but had never read any of her books. So I went to the library and took the book out. Holy cow, it is large! It’s 1,168 pages of small print and wide columns. Yikes! Do I really want to read this tome?? I decided to go for it, not only because of the great recommendation but also because I’m someone who knows how to read efficiently and effectively. Oh my, AM I CHALLENGED!
I’ve renewed the book twice already and am only about half way through. I am enjoying it but it feels like it’s taking FOREVER to read this thing. It probably doesn’t help that I read it in bed which makes it difficult to speed read!
I decided to work the numbers to figure out how long this book should take me to read. I read 15 pages in10 minutes so it takes an average of a minute and a half to read one page. Multiply that by 1,168 pages and I need 1,752 minutes, or 29.2 hours, to read this book. No wonder the book seems like it’s taking forever! I only spend an average of 1-2 hours per week with this book. So it’s not that I’m inefficient, it’s that I need to give it more time to see the progress.
Of course I could give up, or read the Spark notes, or see one of three movies made about this book but I am determined to finish it. It just might not be done until spring 🙂
ENTER NOW