You love books, hence, you must have potential to be a book critic. Not so fast, four-eyes: to be a book critic, you still have to read, and read carefully, so if you don't have time to do so, book writing may not be for you. There are no magic secrets about skimming, no Princeton Review tips about just reading chapter headings. So if you don't have time to read, you should stay away from book writing. I asked two book critics, Lizzie Skurnick and Maud Newton, how they read (both responded in numeric form without prompting, interestingly enough):

Lizzie says,

1) I always read the entire book. If I have time and I haven't already, I try to read the previous books too -- I think it's only fair to give context. I just like to get a sense of what the author's been doing and how the new work stacks up, but other reviewers argue -- probably correctly -- that the work is bought alone and should stand alone. Really, usually it just gives me more ammunition for insult, but there's always the off-chance it could vault someone into the stratosphere.

The worst is when you're reading a book you'd normally toss to the side after three sentences. I don't mean a mediocre book or a book that doesn't grab you completely, I mean a fully why-did-they-publish-this-five-monkeys-typing kind of manuscript. If I'm judging a contest, I'll throw those to the side with the justification that if I can't stand it for thirty pages, it's automatically lost the battle already. But for a review, there's no escape, and it's TORTURE.

2) I just read fast, and I mark things I find interesting as I go. I
don't think there's any BIG readers that read slowly. Multiply books
over the course of a life -- say, three to five a week versus one every two weeks -- your average or slow reader is totally going to fall behind, and will possibly not even be considered a "reader" by the rest of us.

I am very bad about deadlines and am often a half a day late; it's
really unacceptable. I hope all my editors are lying and padding the
schedule with me. If they're not, they should start.

3) I think the only way to read quickly is to read a lot more than you already do. I am definitely doing something skimmy without meaning to, though, since I always find myself having to go back ten pages and be like, "Who the hell is CLARISSA?" At least I catch that there is a Clarissa whom I've missed earlier, though, so that's something.

Maud sez:

1. I always read the whole book before I start writing a review. I take notes in the margins while reading, and fold down pages to mark things I particularly want to remember. And once I start the review, I usually end up reading the book -- or at least major sections of it -- again.

2. I read quickly, but I try to take my time with books I'm supposed to review. And I can do that because I write criticism only sporadically and editors usually give plenty of time to finish the book well in advance of the deadline. (I agonize over the review itself, but not the reading.) I once had a problem with a book that didn't arrive when it was supposed to, but the editor gave me more time.