one way or the other. And no book is going to appeal to everyone. My books don't have a slew of reviews on them, and I am usually thankful to those who do review, even those who have been vilified in above posts. What is weird, though, are the comments, the concerns that come up about the posts. It seems very strange to have conversations about the posters under the books that the posters reviewed. I appreciate amazon a great deal, and I wish more people posted reviws, honest, true reviews. Vine? I had no idea. Rewards system? Who knew. All eye opening. Speed reading IS skimming. A lot of people take courses over the summer before starting grad school (or they did when I was in college) and speed reading is a skimming technique. It involves chunking and the removal -- through scanning -- of extra words like "the" and "but" and some common phrases. But a high-rate speed reader (around 1500-2000 words per minute) only gets 30%-50% comprehension. I don't speed read. Took a course once and it was just not viable for an English major. BUT... I read and type extremely fast. I am a little hyper-kinetic. And I read 2 to 3 novels a day on a jag -- can go as high as 4 on a marathon -- with no problem. If I have time and feel like it I can blow through an average paperback romance in 3 or 4 hours without rushing. My