Airports seem to be magnets for the latest in the world of electronic gadgetry. Ten years ago cell phones were rare; now they’re stuck in people’s ears. There’s a computer in every other lap, a PDA in every third palm, and where there’s not a hand held computer game, it’s as likely to be because someone’s playing the game on his phone instead.

But you still see books everywhere, even among the electronically enhanced. Harry Potter sticking out of a purse, The Purpose Driven Life stuffed in the external pocket of a suitcase on wheels. Air travel is a refuge for book reading, that pastime of past centuries that will likely endure for centuries to come. This is the great paradox of reading in the age of technology: books are high priority, even in the technology-of-the-now world of airports, and yet technology makes it harder for us to read.

In two previous columns we’ve considered why books matter, why they’re worth our time and effort. The bottom line, though, is that electronic media are often easier for us to understand. This month I want to offer a few simple strategies to combat the difficulty people have with reading books.

In this series on the importance of books, I’ve been focusing on fiction. Some of the tips that follow work for non-fiction as well, but most of them focus on reading stories.

1. Preview a book before you start reading. Read the blurb on the dust jacket or back cover. Read the contents page if there is one, and never skip forewords or introductions.

2. Use a pen when you read. Any book with multiple characters will be hard to follow. I mark them in the book or make a running list if there are too many to keep straight in my head.

3. Don’t be afraid to stop reading so you can think about the plot or some deep idea you’ve just encountered. Be willing to backtrack and re-read bits if you’re lost or if there’s a plot twist you want to understand better.

4. If you run across an unusual or lengthy description of an object or place, pay attention to it and mark it; it may be symbolic. This is also true for anything that repeatedly appears in the book: spiral staircases, numbers, colors, a kind of flower or bird. They may mean something on a deeper level.

5. Understand the plot. If you make mistakes about the story’s action, you may get lost or completely miss the meaning. Mark key plot moments when you see them.

6. Sometimes you think to yourself, “I just don’t get it.” That’s not necessarily your fault. Sometimes authors don’t want you to make sense of a book until the ending. Some readers demand too quickly to understand what they’re reading and don’t have the patience to live with questions. But you don’t watch 10 minutes of a movie and then quit because you can’t understand it. You keep watching till the answers reveal themselves. Don’t try so hard to “conquer” the book. Let it soak in instead.

7. Look for those things your English teachers taught you to look for: symbols, the climax, the setting, metaphors, and the structure or organization of the story. Pay attention to the characters. What kind of people are they? Why do they do what they do? Are they symbolic? Do they change through the story?

8. Look up words you don’t know! Keep a dictionary beside you (or use an on-line dictionary through your computer) to find definitions and write them in the margins.

9. Talk back to the book by writing notes in the margins: predict what’s going to happen later, ask questions, write a note about a story you’re reminded of from another book or movie. I like to write page numbers down in the margins: when I see something that connects to something I’ve read before, like a repeated phrase, I’ll go back and find that section and write the matching page numbers in both places in the book.

10. If you run across an amazing quote, something so well said that you want to be able to find it again without flipping through every page of the book, take a post-it note, write a brief word or phrase on the non-sticky side of the note summarizing what the quote in the book is about, and put the post-it note on that page with the non-sticky side sticking out of the top or side of the book so you can see it when the book is closed. You’ll never have to ask, “Now where did I read that great quote?” again.

11. After you’ve read the book, look through it again to see what you might learn in retrospect from the notes you made.

Practice makes perfect. The more books we read the better we’ll become, and the better at reading we become the more books we’ll read. It’s a win-win situation. |L

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells