Plotlines .. How Much Do You Remember?

[Univerze]

That's bad!

Hey! Well I can remember a lot of the plot.. just the itsy bitsy details I keep forgetting, and on account of having seen the film just about as many times, forgetting if something's actually in the book, or that they changed it for the film. *sighs*

[Raven]

I'll let you off then!

So the general conclusion we can draw from this thread is that most of the people posting here are Goldfish Readers*.

*People who read books, forget them, re-read them and think they are amazing all over again!

[beef]

I have put safeguards in place, when I read a book it gets a stamp on the back page. so

[pickle]

It doesn't bother me if I have forgotten a book and re-read it if I read it the first time I will quite often have another go anyway and probably get something else out of it. If it was one I didn't enjoy and that happens again I just put it down and don't worry about it.

[Kylie]

So the general conclusion we can draw from this thread is that most of the people posting here are Goldfish Readers*.

 

*People who read books, forget them, re-read them and think they are amazing all over again!

 

That's terrific!

[chesilbeach]

I have a theory that the faster you read, the less you retain.

 

I have several friends who inhale books. A novel that would take me a week or so to read will be read by them in a day, but when asked about it a few weeks later they can rarely remember the detail well enough to discuss it.

 

Well, I'm an exception to your theory, Raven! I pretty lucking that I can remember the plot of most of the books I've read going back for years, and last year I definitely whizzed through books at a rate of knots!

 

In fact, I'm sometimes amazed at how good my memory of books is, right down to usually being able to find a quote or section quickly within a book I haven't read for years. I was thinking about a book I read the other day, thinking I must have only read within the last couple of years, as I remembered clearly a particular plot thread, but when I looked it up, I realised it was at least two years before I started keeping a record of my reading, so must have been about 2004!

[Cookie]

Well, I'm an exception to your theory, Raven! I pretty lucking that I can remember the plot of most of the books I've read going back for years, and last year I definitely whizzed through books at a rate of knots!

 

In fact, I'm sometimes amazed at how good my memory of books is, right down to usually being able to find a quote or section quickly within a book I haven't read for years. I was thinking about a book I read the other day, thinking I must have only read within the last couple of years, as I remembered clearly a particular plot thread, but when I looked it up, I realised it was at least two years before I started keeping a record of my reading, so must have been about 2004!

 

I wish I was like this. I can read a chapter of a book in the morning and by the afternoon I can have forgotten the best of what I've read!

 

I find Paulo Cuelo books bad for this - a week after reading them I will have forgotten everything bar the emotion I felt at the time of reading!

[StephenKingman]

Books that i read years ago i only have a general recollection of the plot and some of the characters and some specific parts but a lot of books i have read in the past two years i can recall with a lot of detail. I generally find that if i read a book slowly and at a pace that takes in all the subtle details that the author originally intended, rather than race through it as just another list on my TBR pile, then many of the details and characters sink into my memory longer.

[Raven]

Well, I'm an exception to your theory, Raven!

 

I've been waiting for you to pop up and shoot down my theory ever since I first posted it!

[chesilbeach]

I've been waiting for you to pop up and shoot down my theory ever since I first posted it!

 

You know me too well!

[Inver]

I'm actually lucky if I can remember the book and author once finished....never mind the plot

[Raven]

I'm actually lucky if I can remember the book and author once finished....never mind the plot

 

Perhaps it's all the stairs you've fallen down whilst reading!

[Johnny Carson Whit]

Since I have adopted the rather simple 'technique' of mouthing the words, kind of reading them aloud but under my breath, I am retaining so much more of the story than I used to as a silent reader. Reading silently I would more often than not forget what I have just read by the time I get to the bottom of a page!

[poppyshake]

Now I do the reading out loud thing a lot of the time (albeit not loudly but you know what I mean .. it's usually a low murmur and OH says it's like having a monk in the house quietly chanting) .. but that hasn't helped. It helps me get the story into my mind at the time but I forget it just as quickly.

 

Btw how weird is it that you can read silently or out loud and yet sometimes it's a couple of minutes before you realise that your mind has wandered to something else completely .. or is that just me?!

 

Even weirder is that on QI Stephen Fry said that reading to yourself was introduced at quite a late date and quite revolutionary ... nobody had thought to read in their own head before .. everyone read out loud.

[anisia]

I'm horrible at remembering the books I read and it's always annoyed me. There are books I know I've loved and yet I can barely say two words about them.

[sirinrob]

I don't really have a problem remembering plots of books I have read, but for some that I read 30 years ago the memory is a little fuzzy

[arewenearlythere]

I think books are a much more cerebal experience than watching movies...I think that I sometimes read a book and save it into my short-term memory! As with everybody else, I never forget the throughline and plot threads of a book...they are major developments!

[Susie]

I'm so glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has trouble remembering lots of details of a book.