When I arrived at the Society my reading recall subscale was in the 8th percentile. I could not read a full chapter without checking my phone. This is what I read over four months, in order:
1. "Stoner" by John Williams — short, dense, every sentence matters. Trains close reading.
2. "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Kahneman — directly relevant to what the Society measures. Dense enough to be real practice.
3. "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov — requires sustained narrative tracking across multiple storylines.
4. "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Hofstadter — the real test. If you can read this with comprehension, your reading faculty is recovering.
Reading recall subscale: 8th percentile → 41st percentile. Still below institutional median, but the trajectory is visible.
Read physical books. The Society is correct about this.