How I read so many books

Postcards from Rethink Central

Fancy chatting live? Scroll down for details (or to read the transcript)

Got a burning business question? Come to a live call

Next live call is October 10, 2023 - Noon Eastern / 6pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily. 

Prefer to read? Here’s the transcript:

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I love reading and that I read a huge amount.

In fact, if you follow me on Instagram then you’ll know that I share the 16 books I’ve read roughly speaking every 10 days.

Now, how do I read so many books? Well, I’m about to share that with you.

My name is Liz Scully. I’m an absolute confirmed bibliophile.Here’s how I read so many books. It’s very simple. 

I listen to audiobooks.

Some time last year my vision was super affected. In fact, for most of last year, probably for about 18 months, I could barely see at all. It’s much better now, but reading text, fine detail, is still quite difficult.

While I was at my absolute worse I was told by my doctors to not look at anything ‘specifically’. Obviously, they’ve never actually met any humans, what they said was just sit still and don’t look at anything specifically.

That meant no films which, as I worked in the film industry, was devastating, no books, no theatre, and no going outside because I kept falling over with my balance issues. So what I did instead was I began to listen to nothing but audiobooks.

If you listen to audiobooks for 8 to 10 hours a day, which I was for the first few months, you get through a lot of audiobooks.

I listen at double speed.

It depends on the speed of the narrator – but I listen faster than 1. I worked in the film industry as an animator, I got used to checking audio with the lip syncing so I’m used to working at faster speeds.

But for everybody when you record an audiobook, all of my friends that are authors have told me, that when you record you’re told to speak much slower than usual. So speeding up to 1.25 or 1.5 brings you back to a normal speaking speed.

I’ve listened to a lot of books and I’m regularly up to double speed, sometimes very occasionally I’m up to 2.5 on some people if they really take a long time to speak.

I listen to books all the time.

One of the lovely side issues of this is that I’ve listened to so many that there is now no difference between me listening to a book with my ears and reading it with my eyes. The only difference is that I can listen much faster than I can read with my eyes, which are still a bit iffy.

The other nice thing is that I can lie in the dark before I go to sleep and I’m not looking at that blue screen that’s keeping me awake or I don’t have to have the lights on. I can lie there absolutely in the dark with that childlike joy of being told a story. It’s beautiful.

This means that I can whiz through books very easily. I listen to them at night, I listen to them pretty much at any point in my day when I’m not with another person and I’m not in the shower. All of my reading is done like that. Absolutely everything I do, as I cook, or even when I’m exercising I’m listening to books.

This is how I listened to well over 500 books last year.

And it means that I can absorb information much more quickly.

Because when you’re listening so fast you have to pay attention. It’s a really wonderful thing.

If you’re not listening to audiobooks, or it’s been a while since you listened to them, I would strongly recommend you check it out. Because there came a point after maybe two or three months where I’d listened to so many that I genuinely couldn’t tell the difference between reading with my eyes and reading with my ears.

So, that’s how I read so many. That’s how I’m so freakishly informed about all sorts of strange things.

And that’s why I am so interested in what you’re reading.

If you ever have a book suggestion, please let me know. Hop over to Instagram, Rethink Central and look for the #RethinkReading – you’ll find out exactly what I’m reading at the moment and I am very open to suggestions.

And if you have questions about your own business come along to one of my regular Q&A sessions. There’s a box below just drop your email in there. And it would be lovely to see you.

Next live call is October 10, 2023 - Noon Eastern / 6pm UK.
Come along to ask your questions about launches, strategies for marketing, Masterminds or whatever you're stuck on in your business.

Add your email below and I'll send you the zoom info for the calls. See you there!

Or come say hello on Instagram here.  I microblog daily.