Welcome to Gaia! ::

Okay I love books (which is why I joined this guild). I'm mostly into fantasies and fiction basically, but I'll read other genres if it catches my attention.

Anyway, usually when I read a sentence that didn't make much sense or I didn't pay enough attention to, I have to read it over and over again until I get it. I can't really get into that second dimension of reading like other people do (for example: if i'm sitting in a library reading a book, I dont feel like I'm in the situation all the way. I still remember that I am in a library and i notice all of the shelves around me). I have a few times, like for the book InkHeart and a few others, but mostly not.

Basically my problem is that I have to read things over a lot which makes me a slow reader, and I can't get so deep in a book that I feel like I'm there. Help?

Is it that you are distracted or feel self conscious?

perhaps a library (or any public place for that matter) is not for you. Reading in your room privately or such a place with minimal people/distractions might help you relax.

As said above, if you are familiar with your room it might be less imposing

Well, I myself like to read in my room all alone, knowing that no one will disturb me. I absolutely hate when people walk in on me when I'm reading for some reason.

So, try isolating yourself. Lock the door if you have to.

You can also try reading a really long book so that if you fall asleep while reading it, you can have happy little dreams about it. ^^

if you have that problem i wouldnt try to read the discworld books

It has to do with focus, but practice helps. For example, I didn't read a book with more than ten pages until I was nine years old. Then, my first 'big book', I read one from my mother's collection, with a grand total of four hundred pages.
I was so incredibly distracted, despite how good the book was, that it took me more than six weeks to finish it. Now, I can read a six hundred page book in one day.

The more you do it, the faster you get. And I can read in a room full of five year olds who are all screaming. Rather than learning to ignore your surroundings while reading, learn to ignore them when you aren't doing anything. Then, you can ignore things whever you want.

By the way, this really only works if you aren't much of an organised person, because my Mum and my sister can't do it, but I can. So, I hope you aren't organised. biggrin

whenever that happens to me, i make a colorful picture of whatever's going on in the book. then i hold it for a little bit. it helps, but only a little.

try and recreate the environemnt you were in the times where you have managed to zone out when reading a book.