Reading as a Meditative Practice

I am just discovering the joys of Robarts Library recently. Not only is this library incredibly huge, but it's also quiet enough that one can spend the whole day reading there, relatively undisturbed.  I have taken the opportunity recently to explore lovely "BQ", the call letters which start the Buddhism section, and which, coincidentally, sound like the word "bikkuni".
    Is reading anything like meditation practice? I suppose that traditional Buddhists might argue that the acts of reading and meditation are totally opposite to each other, and they would have a valid point there. After all, meditation instruction is often telling people to let go of discursive thinking, whereas reading seems to be exactly the opposite. However, recently, I have noticed that reading can be taken to be a meditative process as well. But I found that in order to do that, one has to be a little bit detached from words themselves, and more trusting of the mind's ability to comprehend the words without getting stuck on them.
    For example, I have found that reading certain philosophies in Buddhism is extremely hard, because they involve many layers of complicated mental states, much of which can't really be known except through hard practice. In those moments when I haven't been able to wrap my head around certain concepts, I have tended to exhort to just recognizing the struggle I am experiencing as a legitimate process in itself. Perhaps one can think of it as a form of honest reflection on what cannot be comprehended so easily, as well as a step in slowly comprehending it. If I don't have faith that eventually I will understand the concepts or states of mind, I will give up on reading altogether and conclude that all of it is way beyond my capacities. But in a way, it is a little bit like working out in the gym: the mind gradually assimilates the material and finds ways to apply it given enough time and practice. I would say that the ability to keep reading even if it makes no sense is a meditative practice: it involves doing without trying to grasp or use familiar concepts to understand what is written. So the idea is not to get attached to understanding or not understanding but to rest in the awareness of both states.
   Another aspect which intrigues me is using an open mind to read and being aware of when I am shutting down or using my previous thoughts or judgments to 'stop reading'. When a reader starts to intercept thoughts on page with their own thoughts, that's when there is sometimes a tendency to overlook what is being written, similar to what happens when people interrupt others too much in conversations. I have often seen people scribbling their own notes in library books beside each paragraph, as though they themselves were the co-authors--the only difference being that they seem to have more to say than the original author! In these cases, I find that the person is often no longer open to the author's thoughts, but are using their own impressions and judgments as a defence against reading further. It's okay when this happens (and it happens a lot) but I am saying that a meditative approach to reading might involve treating these judgments as passing thoughts, and using the text itself as a way to keep the mind settled and present. It involves allowing the book to change you and work through you, rather than using previous memories to judge the book.