Just finished (re-)reading Wheel of Time out loud.

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March 2018 I started reading The Wheel of Time series out loud to my wife. Since then I joined Tar Valon, went through the class. And have availed myself of the library quite a bit. We finished the final Epilogue yesterday.

The series is epic. I started reading the series in 2007. My wife had a brain tumor and I needed to be home, available, but quiet all the time. So I read the first nine books at that time, picking up the others as they came out. I tried to share the story lines with her, but it is too big and too complex.

As for the reading out loud, I read volumes like Redwall to our children. I am a good reader and speaker. I have read numerous books aloud as a way for us to bond and share the experience.

Professional readers for this series and others read around 150 wpm. I speak about 120 wpm. They can cut and splice mistakes, I could not. Still, they set a standard. With WoT I found the readers averaged around 2 ½ minutes per full page. I usually run about 3 minutes. On a standard day, I would read a chapter or try to find places to stop between 15 and 20 pages.

I started the readings with A New Spring. My wife says that really helped. The story is very confusing and A New Spring gives enough background to aid in understanding what is going on. For those who feel the books should be read in the order Jordan wrote them, remember, Jordan wrote entire chapters out of order to insert them much later, including many sections of the final book.
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The frog? Well, I read to our children, most notably the Redwall books. Mr. Frog would start ribbiting when I would improvise additional texts. He monitors all my readings now.

I wish I had had the audio books for my commute. I’m retired now.

Reading aloud highlights one’s speech patterns. I found I would change the wording. Sometimes this worked. Other times, I had to go back and re-read the sentence. A writer educated in the Citadel, a writer from the heart of Nebraska and Utah write differently than this ol’ boy raised and educated in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

I did notice differences in writing styles between Jordan and Sanderson. I’m not linguistic expert, so all my observations are subjective. From a personal view, Jordan is more poetic. His sentences are longer. He used too many hyphenated clauses – those sentences within a sentence set off by beginning and ending hyphens – in his writings, making oral renderings difficult. Sanderson uses shorter sentences and more humor. We freely speculated which parts were the words of Jordan and the creations of Sanderson in The Final Battle chapter in A Memory of Light!

I am eagerly looking forward to the Amazon movies. As characters were cast, I found myself rethinking the accents I gave everyone.

Tar Valon's Library helped immensely with keeping track of the incredible number of characters.

How soon will I re-read the series? Don’t know. I’m on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for a re-read and am on Words of Radiance in Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives.

What to read next? My wife said we can wait through the weekend before jumping into another book for me to read aloud.
 

Aduiavas Ida

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Wow. That is seriously impressive! While I have started listening to the audiobooks I am not sure I could handle reading out loud myself.
 

Ilverin Matriam

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My husband and I took turns to read one small book, and I can say it was really difficult. At times I could only think about how I pronounce things and not what am I actually saying (I could go paragraphs without understanding the meaning). So reading all of the books out loud is really impressive, indeed!

It's interesting that you would start with New Spring though. I do not think it would have made sense for me to start with it, but I am glad it worked out in the end for you and your wife :D I cannot wait to start re-reading the series again (I finished my last re-read in 2017 I think)

About what to continue with - I guess everything Sanderson should be great (I am a bit biased :look: ) Since you are on Words of Radiance, reading Oathbringer next would be nice, but also his other things, if you haven't read them already :D
 
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Thank you for your kind comments.

I have read several of Sanderson's other work, starting with the whole Mistborn series. My wife is now reading those at bedtime. We usually have three books each going: One for ourselves at bedtime, one we share outloud, and something lighter.

After reading 11,500+ pages in the Wheel of Time, we switched gears doing Love in the time of cholera. I had tackled it many years ago in Spanish Amor en los tiempos de colera. It is a nice change of pace for us.
 
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I'm mid re-read now (I truly don't know how many times I've read the series). I had people tell me to listen to some of the audio books because you will pick up things that your brain just kind of breezes by. And it's the pronunciations that I'm finding hard listening to. My brain has been reading these books since the mid 90s and to hear names and places said "differently" is...odd. I know I'm going to need to get used to it with the Amazon series coming out. I tried to read out loud to myself a bit. It's so weird! Kudos to you for powering through!
 
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Wow! You jumped right in! Welcome aboard.

I know what you mean about the pronunciations. The readers aren't even consistent with themselves.

I find I need an audience to read outloud. BUT, you do pick up more when reading to someone. For me, it was more like reading WITH someone, just that I was doing all the reading.
 

Almira ni'Caldazare

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That is seriously impressive!
I've read through the Wheel of Time more than once but I don't think that I could handle all those pronunciations.
 
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That is seriously impressive!
I've read through the Wheel of Time more than once but I don't think that I could handle all those pronunciations.
I'm not sure I did either. My pronunciations do not always match the Audio Book professionals. Still, I came up with something that resembled the name on the page.
 
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To be fair, even the audio books have varied pronunciations for minor characters between books, so a hard copy for reference is still a good idea.
 

Ephrem Elpidius

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Thank you for sharing all of that, I am always curious what others do on reading out loud. I have a learning disability in that if I don't read out loud to myself I remember almost nothing, but if I read out loud to myself I can remember almost anything even if reading 4 books at a time. I discovered this disability at university about 13 years ago. I was slow at first, but now I read 250ish words per minute out loud, and that includes pauses and in any mistakes I might re-read over. Each word is still discernible to me, in fact I find it very invigorating. This is one reason I struggle to enjoy audiobooks, I simply am so much faster than any audible book reader, and most people don't want to hear a book that fast (so I totally get that), but because of my disability I have developed a rather unique way of reading, I really enjoy it. I love reading and the imagination it instills in me.
 
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Thank you for sharing all of that, I am always curious what others do on reading out loud. I have a learning disability in that if I don't read out loud to myself I remember almost nothing, but if I read out loud to myself I can remember almost anything even if reading 4 books at a time. I discovered this disability at university about 13 years ago. I was slow at first, but now I read 250ish words per minute out loud, and that includes pauses and in any mistakes I might re-read over. Each word is still discernible to me, in fact I find it very invigorating. This is one reason I struggle to enjoy audiobooks, I simply am so much faster than any audible book reader, and most people don't want to hear a book that fast (so I totally get that), but because of my disability I have developed a rather unique way of reading, I really enjoy it. I love reading and the imagination it instills in me.
Wow! Where do I start? First off, I read aloud between 120 and 150 wmp. 250 would be ridiculously fast.
Second, I read aloud to my wife. It is our way of sharing a book. She does not read to me aloud because of lack of style. We don't read independently to discuss -- she does read to herself much faster than I. If this helps your comprehension, more power to you!
The Wheel of Time was the biggest single project we have done together. It took two years. We have read several other books since then. The thing about reading outloud is we do stop and discuss things along the way. It is a form of bonding for us.
My best to you.
 

Ephrem Elpidius

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Wow! Where do I start? First off, I read aloud between 120 and 150 wmp. 250 would be ridiculously fast.
Second, I read aloud to my wife. It is our way of sharing a book. She does not read to me aloud because of lack of style. We don't read independently to discuss -- she does read to herself much faster than I. If this helps your comprehension, more power to you!
The Wheel of Time was the biggest single project we have done together. It took two years. We have read several other books since then. The thing about reading outloud is we do stop and discuss things along the way. It is a form of bonding for us.
My best to you.

I hope I get as lucky as you someday mate! I would like to have a true bonding experience like that.

I have a friend who can read 790 WPM (not out loud though), but I will literally type a wall of text, and just a couple seconds later she is responding, it is insane!!! only 3% of all humans read this fast last I checked. I will never even come close to half her speed.
 
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