Everything I have worked out about reading faster.
Written while building ReadKinetic, mostly to answer questions I had myself. The recurring theme is that the honest numbers are smaller than the marketing ones — and still large enough to change your reading year.
If you want one place to start, read how to speed read, then whether it wrecks comprehension. If you would rather just use the thing, the EPUB and PDF pages describe what it does with a file.
Guide
7 essaysHow to actually do it, for the situations people are usually in.
How to Read Your Calibre Library on Your Phone
Calibre is desktop software, and getting your books onto the device you actually read on is the part nobody solved well. Here are the four real options, and what each one costs you.
Why Won't My Ebook Open? DRM, Fake Extensions and Dead Formats
Your EPUB won't open, your Kindle book is refused, your PDF has no text. Here is what is actually wrong in each case, how to tell which one you have, and what to do about it.
How to Read Research Papers and Textbooks Faster
Reading a paper front-to-back is the slowest way to learn whether it matters. The order that actually works, and which sections punish you for rushing.
How to Read Your Own Books Faster: EPUB, PDF & More
A complete workflow for speed reading the books you already own — EPUB, PDF, DOCX and more — with progress that saves itself, works offline, and never leaves your device.
Speed Reading for Students: Get Through Your Reading List
A free, realistic speed reading system for students drowning in readings — how to get through textbooks, papers, and PDFs faster without losing comprehension.
How to Train Your WPM: A 20-Day RSVP Protocol
Reading with RSVP is like training a new muscle group. Here is the exact 3-week progressive overload schedule to safely double your reading speed without losing comprehension.
How to Speed Read: The Science-Backed Guide (2026)
Learn how to speed read by eliminating subvocalization and eye saccades. The RSVP technique is the only method with real neuroscience behind it.
Neuroscience
5 essaysWhat your eyes are doing while you read, and why it costs you.
The Return Sweep: The Costliest Eye Movement in Reading
Every time you reach the end of a line, your eyes make a long jump back to the next one. This return sweep misses its target more often than you think, and it is quietly stealing your reading speed.
Why You Forget What You Read (And What Actually Fixes It)
You finish a book and remember almost nothing a month later. That is not a memory defect — it is how forgetting works. Here is the research on why it happens and the small number of things that genuinely help.
Regression in Reading: Why Your Brain Double-Checks Every Sentence
Re-reading the same sentence isn't just a bad habit; it's your brain's automatic error-correction mechanism. Here is why it ruins your reading momentum, and how to stop it.
The Subvocalization Myth: Can You Really Silence Your Inner Voice?
Every speed reading course tells you to stop saying the words in your head. Neuroscience explains why that is biologically impossible — and what you should do instead.
What Are Eye Saccades? How They Slow Your Reading Speed
Eye saccades are the rapid jumps your eyes make between fixation points while reading. Understanding them is the first step to reading faster without losing comprehension.
Research
3 essaysThe measured numbers, including the ones that are less flattering than the marketing.
How Long Does It Take to Read a Book?
Real word counts for twelve well-known books, and the hours each takes at 250, 400 and 600 words per minute — plus why page counts tell you nothing.
What Is the Average Reading Speed? The Real Numbers
Most people read far slower than they assume, and most speed reading claims are far higher than the evidence supports. Here are the actual measured numbers, and what they mean for you.
Does Speed Reading Hurt Comprehension? What the Research Says
The honest answer to whether speed reading wrecks comprehension — what the studies actually show, where the real trade-off is, and how to read faster while keeping what you read.
Comparison
6 essaysHonest looks at the alternatives, written by someone who makes one of them.
Blinkist vs. Reading the Actual Book
A fifteen-minute summary and a four-hour book are not the same purchase. Here is what a summary reliably gives you, what it structurally cannot, and how to tell which one you needed.
Speechify vs. Speed Reading: Which Gets You Through the Book?
Listening and RSVP both promise to get you through more books. They fail in completely different places, and the right answer depends on what your eyes are doing at the time.
A Free SwiftRead Alternative That Reads Your Own Files
SwiftRead is built around web pages and its own library. If you want the same word-at-a-time reading for the EPUBs and PDFs on your disk, here is an honest comparison.
A Free Spreeder Alternative That Reads Your Own Books
Looking for a Spreeder alternative that's free, needs no account, and reads your own EPUBs and PDFs? Here's an honest comparison and a local-first option.
The Best Free Speed Reading Apps in 2026
An honest comparison of the best speed reading apps — Spreeder, Spritz-style readers, Reedy and more — and which one is actually free, private, and reads your own books.
Bionic Reading vs. RSVP: Which Actually Works?
Bionic Reading and RSVP are both designed to help you read faster. Only one has solid evidence behind it. Here is an honest comparison.
Accessibility
2 essaysWhere a paced reader genuinely helps, and where the evidence is thinner than the claims.
Speed Reading with ADHD: Why One Word at a Time Can Help
If reading with ADHD means re-reading the same paragraph three times and losing your place constantly, the problem may not be attention itself — it may be the format. Here is why a fixed-pace reader changes the equation, and where it doesn't.
Speed Reading and Dyslexia: What the Evidence Actually Says
RSVP removes the eye movements that many dyslexic readers find hardest — but it is not a cure, and the research is more nuanced than the marketing suggests. Here is what genuinely helps, what doesn't, and why.
Languages
1 essayReading in scripts most speed readers were never built for.
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