Tuesday, February 17, 2009

25 Random Lies About Me, issue seven

7. While my mother was pregnant with my younger brother, Joe, she would take me to the University of Illinois library.

u of i library - Share on Ovi

She liked the peacefulness and found that I could entertain myself easily there, thought I was only three years old. She didn’t pay much attention to what I was reading (it was an uncomfortable pregnancy, and as long as I was quiet she was happy), so she remains unaware, to this day, that the first book I picked up was one on speed reading.

speedreading-1-hr - Share on Ovi

After devouring it, I quickly made my way through almost half of the library’s ten million volumes.

books - Share on Ovi

Eventually, in the education section, I found a book which convinced me that speed readers often trade comprehension for speed. I became convinced that comprehension was more important just a few books down the shelf, and abandoned the project. Funny tidbit: Because of the design of the library’s stacks, I’ve read thousands of books about agriculture, and I’ve never read a single thing about the nation of Mozambique.

mozambique - Share on Ovi

2 comments:

Jed Carosaari said...

You know, Ben, these little stories, it's surprising how quickly they pull you in.

Benjamin Gorman said...

If I'd tried to come up with 25 true stories about my life, it would have been equally surprising how quickly the last few would have put you to sleep.