How To Read Difficult Literature Medium

I’m a self-proclaimed avid reader (and audiobook listener), which has been a core part of my life over the last few years. However, I find myself gravitating towards the same literary genres — or books that I would describe as falling within my comfort zone: self-development, business, fitness/nutrition, and my guilty pleasure, psychological thrillers. My love of reading started off as a hobby but has now turned into a big part of my workday. What started as one hour in the morning with my coffee quickly turned into two hours, and eventually became 3–4 hours per day. Over the last six months or so, I really started expanding my horizons — diving into new genres, disciplines, and tackling more difficult reads. While this takes significantly more self-discipline, patience, and an active reading habit, the payoff of getting through these challenging books has made it all worth it.

Last summer, I attempted to read Ulysses by James Joyce without any sort of primer — I just read the back of the book and the introduction (which included a short history of the... I thought I had prepared myself for this literary beast by… When I first started reading non-fiction, I would only read books on self-help. I read obsessively, applied everything I could, and saw significant improvements in my life. But by the tenth self-help book, I hit a massive reading slump. Everything sounded the same—just repackaged ideas with different authors, titles, and covers.

Consequently, I no longer felt motivated or excited to read, and I convinced myself I had learned everything I could possibly know. One day, desperate to feel inspired again, I went to the bookstore. I browsed the self-help section first, but nothing stood out. So I kept wandering through the different sections: first psychology, then business, neuroscience, and economics. As I weaved my way through various genres, wanting to read almost every book I encountered, it hit me: I had exhausted one subject but still knew nothing about countless others. Suddenly, the slump disappeared.

I wasn’t bored or uninspired anymore. Instead, I was now overwhelmed by how much I didn’t know and all the subjects I wanted to explore. Despite wanting to take nearly every book home with me, I decided to be a responsible shopper and buy just one. I chose Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, a nearly 500-page book on behavioral economics. I had no background in the subject, but I gave it a shot anyway. It wasn’t exactly beginner-friendly — dense with research and terminology that felt complex to me at the time — but I pushed through.

You are here: Home » Blog » Bookworm's Notebook » How to Read a Difficult Book Reading books like Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce or Infinite Jest (2006) by David Foster Wallace can seem daunting, but it’s a journey well worth taking. Learning how to read a difficult book requires not just patience but also specific strategies to comprehend its complex themes and intricate structures. To face the challenges of reading a difficult book, develop a disciplined reading schedule and commit to reading a certain number of pages or chapters each day. Annotating as you read can help keep track of complex plots or ideas and make it easier to revisit key passages later. Another useful strategy is to join a book club or online forum that focuses on difficult texts.

Engaging in discussions with others can provide new perspectives and keep motivation levels high. When facing the challenges, start by understanding the context and time period of the book; this can provide invaluable insights into its themes and style. If you encounter particularly tough sections, don’t hesitate to skim or even temporarily skip ahead. To stay motivated, view the challenging sections as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles. The goal is to keep moving forward and enjoy the reading experience. Difficult books often feature dense prose, intricate plots, and extensive use of symbolism.

Works by Shakespeare or James Joyce typically contain language that may feel archaic or unfamiliar. A lot of you have asked me how I read so many difficult, long books, like some of the classics I have discussed here? And how can I read, summarise and analyse them on this channel? Today, I will explain my process in 9 steps to help you read and digest meaty books but more importantly how to be more productive with your reading. There are 2 types of writers and readers: discovery readers are intuitive and planners are logical. Discovery readers seek experiences and surprises.

Planners, however, have a specific goal. In my younger days I used to be a discovery reader and I would let the book take me on a journey. Now I plan my reading. When you’re young, you date for fun. But once closer to 30, you search for a good mate to have babies with. When it comes to books, I am picky.

Typically fiction readers are discovery readers and non-fiction readers are planners, but I’m a planner through and through. Just as in life and stories, reading is a three-part process: before reading, while reading and after reading. So each section comes with three tips. Let’s begin. I used to be scared of commitment, so I read shorter books. Short books are fun dates, while long books are like a full-on marriage.

Reading the 7 volumes by Marcel Proust, about 3000 pages was a marriage, with lots of ups and downs. I started slow and moved up once I had the stomach to digest a chunkier book. Just like in gaming, you want to start at level one. Two of my favourite books of all time are short novellas: the Blind Owl and Pedro Paramo. Step: 2: You must judge a book by its cover. I’m a self-proclaimed avid reader (and audiobook listener), which has been a core part of my life over the last few years.

However, I find myself gravitating towards the same literary genres, or books that I would describe as falling within my comfort zone: self-development, business, fitness/nutrition, and my guilty pleasure, psychological thrillers. My love of reading started off as a hobby, but has now turned into a big part of my workday. What started as one hour in the morning with my coffee quickly turned into 2 hours, and eventually became 3-4 hours per day. Over the last 6 months or so, I really started expanding my horizons—diving into new genres, disciplines and tackling more difficult reads. While this takes significantly more self-discipline, patience, and an active reading habit, the payoff of getting through these challenging books has made it all worth it. Last summer, I attempted to read Ulysses by James Joyce without any sort of primer—I just read the back of the book and the introduction (which included a short history of the text).

I thought I had prepared myself for this literary beast by reading some classic literature prior, including authors like Oscar Wilde, Slyvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. I was feeling confident, and obviously niave. After struggling hard through the first two chapters, I abandoned Ulysses entirely—feeling perplexed, discouraged, and slightly cross-eyed. While Farewell to Arms took me a bit to warm up to in terms of style, understanding the narrative, and getting to know the characters, with Joyce, I was completely lost and had no... If you’ve read—or attempted to read Ulysses, then you know what I’m talking about. I decided to try my luck again this year by picking it up again for the second time, but approached it in a completely different context.

I just finished Ulysses last week; my hardest read to-date which provided the inspiration for this article. For those that aren’t familiar with Joyce or his work, Ulysses is a modernist novel that was published in 1920 and is considered “the marathon of literature.” Joyce is known for mixing different narrative... He pushed barriers in language, and was prolific for his lack of censorship, and for incorporating controversial views or “taboo” topics into his work (ie. his sacrilegious views on the Roman Catholic Church). For example, in episode 14 (Oxen of the Sun), Joyce showcases the gestation of the English language by combining prose that spanned Latinate alliterative Anglo-Saxon, medieval, Elizabethan, early seventeenth-century, and Gothic prose…among others. Trust me when I say that this was by far the hardest chapter.

Katie Azevedo July 31, 2023good habits, reading comprehension, study skills If you’re a student of any age, you’re going to read hard books for school. This is a fact of life. But whether you consider yourself a good reader or not, reading hard books will always take more effort and sometimes different approaches than reading other types of books. In this post, I teach you how to read hard books with 7 strategies. The strategies below will help you get through difficult novels, including non-fiction, fiction, and biographies.

Priming is a strategy that involves getting a brief overview of the topic you’ll be reading about before you read it, so that what you read has a place to “stick” in your mind. Why is this important? Because the more you know about a subject, the better you’ll be able to process and understand new information about that subject. Think of it this way: If you’ve eaten an orange before, you’ll have an easier time describing the flavor of a grapefruit the first time you eat a grapefruit. Understanding the orange’s flavor (sweet, tart, citrus-y) helps you categorize and experience the flavor of a grapefruit. I teach philosophy, and my students often come into my classes with the expectation that the texts we read will be difficult, dense, and impossible for them to fully comprehend.

They’re right. If you can read a text breezily, in a reclining position, with a drink in one hand, and come away with confident assurance that you have understood every single thing the author has said,... It might be good as pure, time-filling entertainment, but you may as well watch daytime reruns of soap operas. Such a text isn’t telling you anything you don’t already know, so it isn’t stretching your mind. To learn from a text, it has to have a certain level of difficulty and this means going well beyond your current level of understanding. It can’t be completely incomprehensible, of course, but I don’t think that many of my students are laboring under the false expectation that they should be forcing their eyes to run over paragraphs of...

How should one approach such texts, then, so that the difficult and challenging is not, at least, torturous? I have one simple tip, but it requires patience and the willingness to get through fewer pages (it’s tough for those achievement-oriented checklist types and worse for procrastinators reading last minute for a deadline). Read one sentence at a time, or even one clause at a time if the sentences are complex. When you hit the period, pause. Think about it. Make sure that you have actually understood at least the most obvious implications of what has been said.

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