Improve Your Reading Skills - Read the Novel, "The Star of Kazan"

The best selling book The Star of Kazan is about an abandoned girl called Annika who lived as a maid but became a "star" at the hearts of  three servants and three professors who lived at a grant house in Vienna. This interesting background of Annika fills your heart with a sensational feeling towards life: sympathy, happiness, sadness, amazement, sorrows, and awesome.

In fact, all the characters have very interesting background which readers can reflect upon.

Zedekiah (Zed)
Zed was friendly, diligent, helpful, but somewhat honestly shrewd. Despite being a son of the horse dealer and descended from gypsies, Zed managed to join the imperial riding show with his horse, Rocco.

Stefan Bodek
Stefan was a childhood friend of Annika. As a son of a poor washerwoman, he had a poor live. He wanted to be an engineer but feared that he couldn't afford to study. At the end Annika paid for him to study.

Follow the link for the descriptions of other characters in the novel.

But when you read the book you must utilize both your left and right brains to fully grasp the essence of the novel. In other words, you must let your imagination take a full control as you read. So, learn to comprehend the events that develop the plot of the novel with your left brain, i.e. the logical thinking and understanding of the text; and learn to match the events of the novel that create the plot with your right brain, i.e. your imagination. For more information, you can read the book, The Whole Brain Business Book that describes how we can make use of "four-quadrant model of the brain and the corresponding thinking styles: logician, organizer, communicator, and visionary".

When you read, make sure you read and take in the events with your logical mind, i.e. left-side of your brain as it says in the text regarding various events of the story; while at the same time always form images with your visionary mind, i.e. right-side of your brain to memorize the overall plot of the story.  For further reading, please read the book Reading with Meaning. It explains the strategies like "inferring, asking questions, making connections, determining importance in text, creating mental images, and synthesizing information" to enhance your reading skills.