Bro-Watch 2021: "How I Speed Read"

[@zacharynovak4880]

Don’t knock it til you try it; I took the dude bro approach to reading a Tale of Two Cities, and I can tell you that I was not disappointed. Failing to find the author’s Ted Talk for the book, I got with the modern times and skimmed the first chapter or so, and it’s delightful! What a wonderful story about a girl reuniting with her long lost father! Since the other chapters are probably just saying the same thing in a different way, I decided not to waste any more time finishing (snort) the book since I was already so pleased with myself for having figured it out. I then had the rest of the afternoon free to scroll aimlessly for several hours on social media. Life hacking, baby.

[@saintdonoghue]

Hee. I've said it before, but: Gawd, I love my viewers.

[@timothyevan2303]

instablaster...

[@lindaw847]

'Don't procrastinate inefficiently!' I want that on a t-shirt!

[@TheRoomNote]

How to read 1,000 books a year. 1: Buy 1,000 books. 2: quit your job. 3: Sit in a chair and read.

[@acruelreadersthesis5868]

I am SO down for more of these kinds of videos! They are so fun!

[@lindaw847]

I could only watch the first 23seconds before I threw up in my mouth. Thanks for taking one for the team.

[@beatingaroundthebooks]

Same here - I wonder why I even clicked on it. Funnily enough he has since unlisted the video.

[@skjoldursvarturskikkjan7860]

"One ring for the Dude-bro Lord on his minimalist throne In the Land of the XXI century where aimless boys lie. One Ring to scam them all, One Ring to sell them life advice, One Ring to bring them all and in the broness bind them In the Land of Iowa where the cow poop lies"

[@saintdonoghue]

Heeee

[@starwolvie]

I have ADHD and I love to read!

[@saintdonoghue]

Hah! I always think of this, when lazy people just reflexively tell me they have ADHD - I always want to tell them, "Do you have any idea how insulting that is to people who really do have ADHD?"

[@lindaw847]

I would love to see Mark Twain's TED talk!

[@21vgkoab]

I will have the pop corn out for this series. It's a weird coincidence that i watched your new book tuber tag that you done 4 years ago where you quote C S Lewis something along the lines of looking at the you non reader friends and seeing how small their world is. I feel this aptly applies to this young gentleman

[@GinaStanyerBooks]

I’m off to wallow in The Last Chronicle of Barset gloriousness.

[@drawntostories5940]

There's lots of value to be extracted from this video. Guaranteed good ROI 👍

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

I am speechless. You are taking me into a world I did not know existed and undermining my faith in humanity. How many subscribers absorbing this nonsense? I need to go and read some Milton to restore my equanimity.

[@somebenfen]

My favourite bit is when he says "it's not enough to say 'this is really valuable content, thanks Andrew'" 😄

[@coreyblack4971]

Him calling this “speed reading” is very odd. High school students that read the SparkNotes summary of Macbeth aren’t speed readers. They just don’t read.

[@starwolvie]

Great video! I look forward to more throughout the year. I had a quick look at the guy's video. Even at 2 times speed I couldn't watch the whole thing. I definitely won't be watching any of his other videos!

[@EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse]

Omg Steve... This is brilliant. I can't wait for more of this content. Read 1000 books in a year the modern way- by not reading! 🤣🤣🤣 So funny, entertaining and very valuable here

[@ChristyLuisDostoevskyinSpace]

Frankenstein reading indeed 😬 Yikes! That is super sad. Thanks for the debunk.

[@barbaraboethling596]

Super video Steve! Thanks!

[@Toastwig]

“There’s gold in them there dude bros” haha

[@johncrwarner]

I can read a 1000 books a year read what I quaintly call the "backs of the books" (I know I am so last century!) I think Andrew Kirby might class that as reading.

[@beatingaroundthebooks]

"Just about long enough for your pre workout amphetamines to kick in and then you're at the gym." Comedy gold! 😂 I've actually stumbled upon one of these videos recently and briefly considered sending it to you. Will do it in the future, this is too entertaining! I've read 76 books last year despite decreased concentration in the beginning of the pandemic and feel that was already an achievement. I once tried out listening to a 15 min summary a la blinkist on scribd - which I use to listen to *shock horror* full length audiobooks - and it was torture. I think I need a short video of your tip against procrastination to play every morning.

[@krzysamm7095]

Ha I stopped reading the cliff notes in 1986 American English in 11th grade. On the very first test everyone failed the test as there were no questions where the material could be found in the cliff note. The teacher was smiling ear to ear that day 😂

[@mame-musing]

Methinks there is much drama pending.

[@saintdonoghue]

Hee! Should I turn this into a drama channel? No more boring old Livy!

[@MalikAlrajab]

"You should read what you like and drop what you don't like" I want that T-shirt!

[@saintdonoghue]

In my MERCH store, the T-shirt would read "DROP THAT BOOK"

[@justadream631]

How to read a thousand books a year:you don't and shouldn't want to. Cosmic librarian guru🙌🏽 thank you for this video. Enjoyment is just as important as productivity and when you can combine them both with reading makes it worth all the while finishing a book cover to cover. Keep it up😁

[@lemongraves2926]

I wonder how blinkist makes those 15 minute summaries?Might I suggest, by reading the whole book. No one reads the whole thing though....

[@elenamakridina8196]

I'm aligning my frontal lobe with reading now. It's a tedious fruitless work but someone has to do it. Oh, man. I found Danila Comastri Montanari and her Publius Aurelius Statius series, all by myself. I wish I hadn't been such a lazy procrastinating bum and learned to read Italian. I wonder if she's as good as John Maddox Roberts. Anyway, I bought first two books (translated into Russian) my frontal lobe is all aligned towards them and doesn't give a damn about The Landmark Thucydides or Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities we started reading in 2020. Thankfully, the books won't be here until a day after tomorrow, I might yet squeeze a Tolstoy novella in.

[@muskndusk]

As someone who loves reading I had a smile on my face throughout your critique. I'd love to watch a Ted talk by Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy, or maybe read the blog posts which they (and other long-demised authors) turned into novels! Maybe I'll forgive you for your previous comments about cats and resubscribe. Towards the end of the vid you used the phrase: "kick around this little kitten." Oh dear!

[@juliae.8237]

I can’t think of anything more depressing than listening to 15,000 minutes of Blinkist. And why would you trust someone else to tell you what the most important parts of a book are. Isn’t avoiding reading a book by listening to a synopsis a form of procrastination?

[@librariesandlabradors]

I went back to watch this after you mentioned this series in a recent video and I laughed so hard! 💀 Omg. Sometimes I question my own generation, but then I do meet so many actual young readers that my fear is a little assuaged.

[@adamfox1669]

I have ADHD and I read? Huh I've never heard of that before, but it sounds like something people would say. I've quit TV and have gone over to audiobooks/regular paper books. Great channel, great books, always interesting. Thanks. Be safe

[@txmatt2112]

2021 just got better w Bro watch!

[@BooksForEric]

Thank you Steve for being the Lucian we desperately need!

[@saintdonoghue]

Good Lord, that's a high compliment!

[@maddawgmaxtv8822]

Something interesting that I’ve noticed since I jumped back into reading. Particularly historical books. I constantly stop to look up unfamiliar word definitions or stop and read an entire Wikipedia page on some place, thing, or person before jumping beck into the book and continuing.

[@mdavidmullins]

I often find that if you plow through the very book in hand will answer many of those questions later in the text. There's something to be said for putting in the miles and getting a lot of text under you belt about a particular subject. Multiple books on a subject will invariably cover some of the same territory in slightly different ways, such that you will gain the knowledge you need just from exposure. It's very much like learning a language by immersion. Jump in and eventually you'll learn to swim. If you stop and look up more than the occasional thing then your reading drags to a crawl.

[@hypatia4754]

Amazing. That´s what I´ve always done. Surprisingly logical response when you don´t know something, isn´t it?

[@heidis3993]

"Fractal wrongness": I am storing this term away for future use.

[@DDB168]

I didnt last 2 minutes. It's like watching a train crash over there. I spent more time reading the comments, of which many are very critical. And yes you're right about Catch-22. Something weird is going on there. Could the number 22 be of subliminal significance to bro-tubers ? 😉 On my edition, on the spine, the number 22 is actually at right angles to the word Catch. Not sure if other editions are like that. If his was like that perhaps he felt the need to "fix it" !

[@saintdonoghue]

A viewer with that same edition of "Catch-22" sent me a picture - the numerals are silvered, so maybe they were catching his ring-lights in a funny way -

[@allancowley2254]

Ah yes - book fracking .

[@MrJosh066717]

You knocked this video out if the park. You're a crack. Cheers

[@DuncanMcCurdie]

I think that is the UK Vintage Books 50th Anniversary edition of Catch 22. It is a weird cover design, the 22 on the front cover are dog tags.

[@saintdonoghue]

But why do the numerals on the spine seem so bright? They don't seem to be an original part of the video

[@DuncanMcCurdie]

@@saintdonoghue oh they are probably made to look like dog tags too, the designer made them shiny so they are standing out from the ring lighting shining directly onto them.

[@levitybooks3952]

His video is unlisted and has a lot of negative comments. His channel makes my stomach turn.

[@burntgod7165]

What version of the Decameron is lurking there at your left shoulder, yellow spine? Looking for an edition I could read as part of your Western Canon.

[@severalgecko]

Not Steve, but it's the translation by Wayne A. Rebhorn published by W. W. Norton.

[@saintdonoghue]

Yes indeed, it's the Rebhorn translation - and more importantly, it's the PAPERBACK of the Rebhorn translation, which has a blurb by a very sexy young reviewer! That paperback should be the BookTube Standard Edition!

[@MaximusStetich]

If I may, I would like to express my interest in you exploring and positing your opinion regarding nonfiction writer Ryan Holiday, notably known for extolling stoicism as a ‘practical philosophy’. I’m of the opinion that you’d find it worthwhile examining him and his brand of dude-bro, especially given his prominence. To speak personally on him, I’d consider him to be of the benign but beneficial variety.

[@GinaStanyerBooks]

I was thinking the same thing. I like Ryan Holiday.

[@saintdonoghue]

@@GinaStanyerBooks Duly noted! I shall search him out!

[@jayv3264]

Lmao, I saw that video quite awhile ago, but I still remember how awful it was. You echo my thoughts 100% (and many of his video's commenters!).

[@angiejones5918]

If I read all these comments, is this an equivalent to a cow-crap 'War and Peace'?

[@saintdonoghue]

You have now read "War and Peace" - multiple times!

[@joaoalmeida9993]

HA. I am a software engineer. I have met a lot of guys at school and work who thinks about books in these terms. I have given up trying to defend why I read fiction.

[@saintdonoghue]

I know! The way they talk, you'd think none of them has ever been moved by a work of fiction. I'm no great fan of the made-up stories, but even I would never say that!

[@HareK0nnen]

I took a look at the guy's video, and now it's Unlisted, probably because the comment section is full of ppl making fun of him. So I guess that's 1 out of 3 million bro-tube videos down.

[@jansfrontporch5512]

Remember the commercial of the man performing amazing surgery on a patient? The man admitted he was not, in fact, a doctor; however, he did stay at a Holiday Inn (or whatever hotel it was) the night before? Andrew is an expert at the learned age of twelve. In truth, he likely is unable to read on a third grade level.

[@saintdonoghue]

"at the learned age of twelve" - Hah! You people can be ROUGH!

[@ummagumma7826]

I feel like I am back at Info 1, miss these insights.

[@saintdonoghue]

INFO 1!!! That certainly brings back memories! Were you one of my victims, er, I mean one of my treasured colleagues at the old store?

[@ummagumma7826]

@@saintdonoghue indeedily doodily. I wish I could say my name back then was Snow Knife but alas it was not. A self-admitted dog lover like yourself, especially one of corgis

[@saintdonoghue]

@@ummagumma7826 Snow Knife!!! A name out of LEGEND!!! Good Lord!

[@ummagumma7826]

@@saintdonoghue hope you are doing well. Interesting video. Love the 13k subscribers! If readers fall into three buckets - those who do not read (sounds like a lot), those who read but not enough to know a great book from a good book and bucket 3, those who truly know amazing writing when they experience it - I am still mostly in bucket 2 but have lately felt critical of what I am reading to know if it is great or not. If that makes any sense. I'm still an endcap reader, mostly just the hits. What do you think of Dune and Game of Thrones? Dune was supposed to be amazing but I didn't get that and GoT is freakin awesome, Martin's descriptions leave nothing out

[@jorgschumacher945]

Thank you for the video. No wonder, you didn't understand his reference to deep-learning. That is a buzz-word from the computer science, describing how to bring lot of information into an AI. So as long Dude-Bro has no USB-Port, there is no deep-learning by reading.🤖

[@saintdonoghue]

Hah! So that's what it meant! I wonder: do Dude-Bros secretly WISH for a USB-port?

[@BrandonGuimond]

Judging by the comments on the video, It seems like the little dandelion got his feelings hurt and now the video is listed as "Unlisted".

[@saintdonoghue]

You're kidding me! He unlisted the video? Good Lord - if I can PRUNE these frauds from KZbin just by making laff-riot take-downs of their dumb videos, I'll make one every week!

[@ThatReadingGuy28]

@@saintdonoghue DO IT!!

[@HannahsBooks]

Oh good grief...

[@Matthew-qi7uc]

While I agree with your thoughts that "Bro-Tube" is a generally bad thing with guys just looking to take advantage of others, I don't understand why you would group David Pakman with them? I would love it if you could explain to me why he is included with all of those other people. 21:52 for context.

[@saintdonoghue]

Yes, sorry about that - his name came to my mind because he's forever shilling for Blinkist, that's all. He's not a Bro-Tube channel (although I'd be willing to bet that's the skew of his audience), not at all - he's annoying in entirely different ways!

[@catharinel07]

I'm glad you linked to the video, there's no possible way I could have believed this is real without proof!! Lol. A classic dude bro douche in his natural habitat!

[@rajnisingh8154]

Oh! I guess I am already older than my grandparents.

[@saintdonoghue]

You've got to stop reading like an OLD person! Remember: Everything old is INHERENTLY BAD!

[@SuperKaBlooey]

I had no idea that this genus of grifter was known as the "dude-bro." To play devil's advocate a little, I believe Andrew Kirby sings praises of The Meditations of Marcus Aurileus in his videos, which I assume he has actually read. If he has, not everything he is voluntarily reading is crap.

[@angelsaremystars]

"I just want to make sure you are calm while listening to this." AH! Let me calmly sip my tea with murderous intent. x'D

[@saintdonoghue]

I knew he was going to run into trouble with that third tip!

[@dgiedt]

franzen writes eloquently about how only a very small percentage of people have an extreme need to read books, but only a small persentage!

[@gaildoughty6799]

I’ll never get that time back. What a lot of utter b.s. that was. Where on earth does he get this crap from? Does he make it up as he goes along? Next time I’ll just watch your video and not punish myself by taking a look on my own.

[@AaronReadABook]

if this counts as reading then you just need to watch booktube and you are 'reading' all those books. Yay i read 1000 books!

[@saintdonoghue]

Why not up it to 2000? If you took the Procrastination course, that would be EASY!

[@NanaQuilts]

Tim Ferriss

[@saintdonoghue]

He's their god, bar none.

[@TheRoomNote]

Well I mean Tim Ferriss does have a speed reading video. 😂

[@SpiroHarvey]

Sounds like a video I accidentally watched a couple of years ago by someone else. Specifically gloating about 1000 books in a year. So I'm going to guess that this is a templated grift that many regurgitate. My version of his #2 tip is: Life's too short to read books you don't enjoy.

[@ceephaxx]

Speaking of grifters, how about a video pondering the contents of Der ÜberGrifter's proposed $2BILLION Presidential Library?

[@saintdonoghue]

If he's convicted in the Senate (or even if he's not, if the Dems in the House grow a spine), he won't get a library. And since he's on-camera inciting a violent mob to overthrow the US government, a sane Senate would, in fact, convict him ...

[@orthianz]

Hilarious 😆

[@nathanfoung2347]

does he have a TEDtalk??

[@saintdonoghue]

I've been afraid to look.