I read very fast - about 100 pages per hour - but I never learned any tricks. Just started reading at an early age and read continuously and a lot ever since.
It's hard to analyze how, since I do it without thinking about it, but basically reading very fast depends on 2 factors.
1. Where everyone starts reading single letters and forming them into words, any normally accomplished reader soon recognizes entire words. A very fast reader goes one better and instantly recognizes whole sentences or parts of sentences. In fact, you don't consciously see any part of the text any more, you are just 'there'.
2. The second part is unconscious prioritizing. You skip parts, including whole sentences or paragraphs, that are not really important to you. If the author spends a whole paragraph describing a desert, for instance, you just skim over it noting a few key words... 'sand', 'dunes' or whatever. You've already got the picture of a desert in your head, having read any number of such descriptions - you don't really need to read each detail again. You get right to the meat, like the next dialogue or action.
Of course, with some really good authors, you find yourself slowing down a little, because there isn't anything to skip
. These are the best authors - and the ones I like best. But even with an author like Steven Erikson, where you need to read everything, and do it gladly, I can still read 80 - 100 pages per hour... and don't get bored doing it.
I can sympathize with your boredom when it goes too slowly - I can't read aloud or listen to audiobooks for the same reason - but with practice you can really speed up.
BTW, movies can very, very rarely compare with the book they are based on - I've compared dozens, believe me.
Peter Jackson did very, very well with LotR - but he still needed some 7 hours to do so. In that time, I could have read the whole trilogy.
Not so much faster after all...
