Slow reading.

"In an era when people consume words like fast food and flit from Web site to the next, a slow reading movement is starting to catch on. Two old strategies are being renewed: reading aloud and memorization, to help students truly "taste" the words. Lindsay Waters, executive humanities editor at Harvard University Press, called for a "revolution in reading" in 2007. "Instead of rushing by works so fast that we don't even muss up our hair, we should tarry, attend to the sensuousness of reading, allow ourselves to enter the experience of words," he wrote. The slow reading movement is calling for a closer connection between information and readers, said John Miedema, who published SLOW READING in 2009. (AP) Quoted in the July 27, 2010 CHRISTIAN CENTURY p. 9.
I'm not about to start memorizing because it is clearly not my gift. However, I've had a reading experience lately that makes me think that there is something to this idea of slow reading. Here's what happened.
About a year ago Joanne and gathered our neighbors and began a book club. It's been a grand experience. One of the saddest parts of our impending move is leaving these neighbors. But, I digress.
I read several of the chosen books weeks before our discussion. To refresh my memory for our club meeting I went back and reread the books. Seldom, if ever, have a read a book twice within a few months. I discovered that, while I remembered the main facets of the book, I had quickly forgotten much of the detail. Reading it a second time was almost as enjoyable as the first.
It certainly is significant that they were all very good books; OUT STEALING HORSES, THE BOOK THIEF, THE LATE HOME COMER and now I'm rereading HALF BROKE HORSES. Perhaps I should make a practice of reading the book club selections twice; early and late. Does that qualify as "slow reading?" What would happen if I read a book three times?