Reading Difficulties

Recently I've picked up reading again. As a kid, I used to read books with ease, and read constantly. Now, however, I find it incredibly difficult to focus on a book and I wind up reading only 4 pages in around 15 minutes or sometimes even 20. Am I retarded or am I out of practice?

Other urls found in this thread:

gutenberg.org/files/5200/5200-h/5200-h.htm
amazon.com/Heart-Europe-History-Roman-Empire/dp/0674058097
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

maybe reading dusty old mid 20th century histories by nazis and commies isnt the best place to start

same problem. I'll be watching this thread as well if answer pops up

Someone I always advise in threads like this is try not to go for something too "heady." I get it, you come on Veeky Forums and you see nothing but Pynchon, DFW and dense old Russian literature and you want to dive right in. But just like everything in life, you ultimately have to work your way up to those things.

Pick up an easy to read, mass market paperback, something that looks half way entertaining that you can breeze through. It's not about the book so to speak it's to get you used to the "mechanics" of reading.

Internet is only memes

You don't start working out by attempting to bench press 400lbs. If you try that you're going to drop the weights and break you're neck. Instead you should start of small and light and slowly build up your muscles until you get to it. I didn't start reading regularly until around 25 years old and I spent a long time reading YA fantasy and things like that. It's nothing to be ashamed of because even those stories are much better than anything you find on TV.

Start small and easy and don't push yourself too hard. My first book was one about King Arthur written by Mary Stewart and I remember reading only like one or two chapters a day, now years later I'm reading 3-4 books at a time for most of the day. Once you start reading regularly you should invest in an e-reader because free books are awesome. For 20 dollars you could probably find an old used one and that's good enough and it'll pay for itself a thousand times over.

best tip i've seen

It depends what you're reading. If it's non-fiction like what you have in your picture, depending on the depth of the content, 4 pages in 15min isn't totally out of the norm.

>am I retarded
Nope, this is pretty much directly caused by our constant attachment to the Internet.
Instead of sitting down and taking it a lot of information from a book, your brain has adapted to many spurts of information.

desu "crime and punishment" was the thing that made me re-fall in love with reading and i loved gravity's rainbow as a stoned teen. i agree not to read for meme's sake, but i think a better piece of advice would be to read a book both accessible AND brilliant. reading a formulaic mass-market might turn anyone on the fence away from reading, if they have half a brain.

some examples of books i find both arresting and brilliant are:
>if on a winter's night a traveler
>temple of the golden pavilion
>the third policeman
>fathers and sons
>the elephant vanishes (just the story; i haven't read any other murakami desu)
and for poetry
>ode to a nightingale
>rime of the ancient mariner
>lines composed above tintern abbey
for nonfiction
>civilization and its discontents
>five dialogues of plato (it's a popular collection)
>pascal's pensees

i think these examples—basic as they may or may not be—highlight the beauty and importance of literature as a medium, especially compared to other, more popular visual media.