How exactly do we read?

On page 37 Maguel talks about how when we read we don't actually read from left to right, but rather we read very erratically, with our eyes jumping all over the page, piecing together bits of information at a shockingly fast rate. It had never occured to me to think about how it is that we read, physically. To me, reading has always been about the abstract; analyzation and contructive thinking, etc. But it was really fascinating to stop and think about the movement of my eyes and how it relates to my brain actually taking those bits of unrelated information and putting them together into something I can understand and process all in an instant.

If you want to try something a little mind-boggling, try pretending that you are reading. Don't actually read, just look at words on a page and move your eyes over them from left to right as if you really are reading. If you did it the way I did, you might have found that the movement felt really unnatural and fake. Your eye movement is much too smooth and fast. That isn't what your eyes feel like when they really read. I thought that was interesting.