About a year ago I went to London with Claudia for the weekend to attend a conference. We stayed with another doctor Claudia knew and her husband Naoise (pronounced NEE sha).

On Saturday Naoise got a delivery from Amazon containing about five books. He told me that he gets a similar delivery most days and is having trouble getting into his office it’s so full of books. I wondered why he would spend so much money on all these books. Now I do love reading, and think everyone should read as much as they can, but he couldn’t possibly get through 25 to 30 books a week.

However, he was adamant that he could. He went on to tell me about a speed reading course that he had taken years ago, the effect it had had on him and strongly encouraged me to book a place on one as soon as I got home.

On getting back to the lovely north west of England I soon discovered that such courses are only available in the south of England.. However my search results for a course included a link to Amazon. A few days later I had a copy of The Speed Reading Book by Tony Buzan.

 Amazon UK Page | Amazon US Page

The book describes itself as a revolutionary approach to increasing reading speed, comprehension and general knowledge. Would I say that it is revolutionary? No. Did it increase my reading speed, comprehension and general knowledge? Yes.

It’s got some good reviews on Amazon and some not so good. I find myself agreeing with both to a degree. However, if you follow it through to the end it will definitely have a very positive effect. I have been a fairly slow reader for most of my life. Now I get through a page in a novel in just under a minute (currently reading The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – brilliant, buy it - Amazon UK Page | Amazon US Page). It can take a while for speed reading to feel natural, and it can feel like it’s taking away from the enjoyment of reading the book – at first. But after a bit of practice it will make reading books for pleasure much more satisfying.

Speed reading makes a bit difference to your life as a developer. You can effectively skim through 800 page tombs like Code Complete (essential material for any developer, if you don’t have it buy it - Amazon UK Page | Amazon US Page) in a day and detailed blog entries in seconds and retain a surprising amount. If you combine this with listening to podcasts on the way to work you will dramatically increase the range of tools and techniques you have available to tackle projects at work. Your work will become more satisfying, the quality of your work will increase and eventually you’ll be worth more to your employer – and hopefully they’ll recognise this and pay your more.

So there you have it. Change your life with one pink book. I’m off to buy some shares in Amazon.