How do you read books?

[theanimal]

I read them word by word. Just kidding. What's your style? Do you take notes? Highlight? Nothing?

Personally, I currently read through and do nothing. Occasionally, I'll write down passages or quotes that I find noteworthy. I have been thinking about taking more extensive notes for future recollection. The only downside is that I feel that this would slow down my reading. Maybe that's not a downside?

[cmonkey]

Currently I do nothing as well. I also feel I have a somewhat slower reading style, taking perhaps twice the time that someone else from this group would to read the same material. I like to contemplate things and think through their meanings and what they mean to me. Deeper reading as opposed to skim reading.

[Dave]

I have been thinking about this topic lately, too. This article may be interesting:

https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-book/

I do not highlight or write in the margins, but I do keep a piece of paper with me and write down page numbers that contained memorable information, to review later. I also read slowly, think about how what I am reading relates to the rest of the book and other information, and write a half page book summary after finishing the book.

I am trying to find the balance between reading quickly and retaining key ideas, but I lean on the slow/steady side. Probably I just need to read more .

[Bankai]

My reading speed depends on what I'm reading, quickly if it's fiction, slower if it's a practical book. Generally the better the book, the slower my reading speed (better as in more important, influential, 'deep', filled with new ideas). Sometimes I read only few paragraphs/pages at the time and then take hours/days to digest the message; sometimes it takes a month or more to read a whole book this way. Generally, I try to give each book as much attention as it deserves (which in most cases means skimming only). I never worry about slow reading speed if the book is worth it - quality over quantity.

In terms of notes, I find them helpful if I want to revisit a book; I try to keep them short though. I believe it was Alain De Botton who wrote most people do not re read important messages often enough. I find this to be true, since not all messages are easy to internalize quickly. Notes help with this.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Book-I ... 0671212095 for in depth guide.

Edit: article linked above by Dave is a good summary of Adler's book.

[theanimal]

Yes. I do think the type of reading depends as well. I can speed through things like memoirs or fiction. For example, I read Dan Price's Radical Simplicity in one sitting. However, I recently finished Normal Accidents but that took me much longer to read through. I think I'm able to retain a good chunk of information from both styles, no matter the speed.

Anecdotal story- My mom was talking about my reading habits at a parent teacher conference with my second grade teacher. She told her how after the first day of school I went home and read one of the Harry Potter books entirely that afternoon/night. My teacher told my mom that that wasn't good, I wouldn't be able to understand/retain anything, I shouldn't read that much etc. Thankfully, my mom ignored her .

[disparatum]

I wrote down these set of questions this weekend, as I was thinking about that same thing:

What is it's thesis?

What form of evidence does it offer?

What is narrative and what is fact?

How do the facts offered in this book fit with the other facts in my head?

What were my prior conclusions based on the previous facts?

How should I update my priors and to what extent do I need to update my conclusions based on them?

Find a model that best fits new and old data.

What will you do differently now and what actions will you take in response?


I didn't think about it too much, but it seemed like a good starting point. This will work better for nonfiction than fiction. I've tried to work on my speed reading lately, as there's a lot of things that are only worth skimming. Most news fits in this category I think. I find I have less and less patience for long form articles like you'd find in a magazine like The Atlantic. There's so much fluff, pithy rhetorical devices, long slogs into the history of whatever topic they're writing about (to fill a word count maybe), that I get irritated. I understand having a strong voice is a pretty important part of good writing, but some people's "voices" aren't really compelling. Most internet articles fall in this category unfortunately. I also skim journal articles too, but for different reasons.

I've stopped writing in the margins of books since this hurts their resale value, and I read a lot of things electronically now anyway. I highlight a lot and then reread all my highlights at the end. I copy important passages and write responses that try to link to other things I've read. I used to keep all this in one long Word document divided by topic, and update those topics after reading applicable books. This got unwieldy as it grew to over 50 pages. I still refer to it though, when I forget why I have particular opinions on things (this used to happen often! It's happening less as I've started synthesizing things, but my recall can be slow which hurts in verbal debates). I also sometimes have really epiphany type moments and I try to write down the exact sequence of thoughts that led me there, or else it sometimes gets lost forever. Instead of a Word document I use evernote now and put appropriate subject tags on my notes for each book. We'll see how this works out.

I think the next step might be blogging to try to synthesize my thoughts. The public facing aspect forces you to be a little more methodical.

[GandK]

I don't have a reading strategy unless I go into the book with a studying mindset. (Trying to learn vs allowing myself to be entertained or enlightened.) When studying I use a combination of highlighters - pens or electronic, as the case warrants - and handwritten notes, which magically help me remember things better than typed notes. That may be a generational thing, as my older son seems to have the opposite experience.

[7Wannabe5]

I read very fast, and I usually only take bibliographic notes, unless the purpose of my reading is practical "how to?" When I encounter a good book or author, I sometimes try to follow the sources or influences upstream. Up until I was around 40, I mostly read fiction then I flip-flopped. I think the older you get, the more you realize that life has more unexpected plot twists than can be sensibly strung in a narrative.

[bradley]

If it's fiction, then I just read for enjoyment and think about what's happening. I ask myself typical questions as the story unfolds, but I don't write anything down. If I'm on an e-reader of any kind, I'll highlight quotes or passages that really strike me. If it's nonfiction, I highlight if I'm on an e-reader, and sometimes I'll jot down my own thoughts that pop up as I'm reading. Overall though I don't do much.

I only actually write in a physical text or highlight if I know it's something I'm going to want to refer to later.

I would argue that no one does "nothing" in the strict sense though. Unless the words are drifting in and out of your brain, you're actively thinking even if you're not physically doing anything more than moving your eyes.

[Dave]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Book-I ... 0671212095

Interesting timing! This book arrived at my door a few hours ago .

The reason I bought this book is that I spend a lot of time reading and desire to get the most out of it. I find a huge difference in takeaway between speed reading books and when I read, summarize, connect ideas between chapters, connect ideas between books, etc.

Depending on what your goals of reading are, and your abilities, this may or may not be necessary. For me it is!

[C40]

It depends on what I'm reading, what I expect to get out of the book, and just the general mood I am in as I start the book.

Nearly all my reading is on my Kindle. I really like it.

I take notes for about 1/3 or less of the books I read. My notes are a summary of the important/useful parts of the book. I record these notes in a sort of journal notebook, which I save. I used to write other stuff in those books but I've transitioned to using those notebooks for basically nothing but book notes. For a couple books, later on I typed the notes into a text file on my computer. Sometimes I do review the book notes, but in most cases I do not. I think writing down notes/summaries helps me remember what I'm learning from the book. And I just like writing.

[C40]

Oh also, I've experimented with increasing my reading speed. All I did was read Tim Ferris' blog post on the subject (and one good reddit post) and try out some of the things he said. I don't really practice. I have probably increased my reading speed by 50%. When I want to read fast, I probably read twice as fast as I used to.

[IlliniDave]

Most of my reading is fiction purely for entertainment so I just try to enjoy it. When I read nonfiction I'm usually targeting specific information so I'll usually do a quick/cursory read and leave bookmarks (usually bits of Post It notes) when I find what I'm looking for and want to be able to revisit it.

[jacob]

Incrementally from the first page to the last page usually skipping footnotes and the appendix. Nothing that even comes close to the Adler recommendations above. I suppose I'd follow Adler if I found it worthwhile to put that much effort into a book, perhaps because I had to pay $500 each time I read a book or I read at 50WPM ... but words are practically free these days, so I treat books like a bulimic treats french fries.

I read nonfiction almost exclusively. Out of nonfiction I prefer the textbook/monograph style (I skip the exercises for the reader) but still will occasionally read popularized nonfiction just to see an alternative perspective. It's been my painful experience that the latter are rarely worth it as a primary source, but I'll still read an entire pop-nonfiction just to extract 1-2 good sentences or paragraphs of value mostly because of a unique or better phrasing from the textbook equivalent which I already covered. E.g. I didn't get much out of this because I already read this a couple of years before. This is typical.

80% of the Pareto space of a domain is likely covered by the seminal textbook which is 20% of the written literature. The other 80% is often pop-nonfiction or various me-too textbooks.

It seems to me that modern word-processing has expanded the word-count of a typical book without expanding the idea-count, perhaps because authors are paid by the word and not be the idea. Hence, there are fewer ideas per page compared to e.g. a book that was typewritten 100 years ago ... or handwritten 2000 years ago. When I detect low density, I skim, just looking for ideas/phrasings like above. If the density is high, I'll slow down a lot.

When I read textbook/monographs, I mostly look for new mental models. I find that many fields use variations of essentially the same ideas (latticework) and that it's a lot easier to understand a concept in new field if I already understand the analog in an old field. The very idea of a latticework is also that the Pareto space is close to maxed out by a selective sampling of just 20% of the fields; maybe the equivalent of 6-10 unrelated bachelor degree equivalents.

I never underline. I find that for paper books, I can approximately remember where in the book I saw something (e.g. upper left page around page 170). Not so with electronic books, so I prefer paper. I suppose I don't need to highlight because I just remember where the ideas were.

I find that whatever notes I take will be entirely uninteresting to me even a short time later, so I never use the few notes that I take and which seem to be scattered around my table on yellow postit notes. This is likely because I read in the sense of bringing new information into my internal model; not to use my brain as some kind of index for external information. Consequentially, I suck at quotations and citations.

To generate deep understanding, I tend towards writing hyper information-dense review-style articles or dissertations. This is how I wrote my scientific workings. It's how I wrote the ERE book. It's what I prefer to read myself too.

[enigmaT120]

I just read. Probably more fiction than anything else.

[Dragline]

You can find Adler's "How to Read a Book" (1965 version) here for free: http://www.evergladeshs.org/ourpages/au ... 20Book.pdf

If you are looking for ideas as to how to improve your comprehension of material, its worth looking at. But Adler is quite pendantic.

I do most of my reading in electronic form these days. I tend to make bookmarks and notes. If I find something really interesting or attractive and might want to refer to it later, I may cut and past it into my journal. (And/or throw it up here in an appropriate thread.)

Like some others here, I don't read much fiction and usually would not make any notes on it.

[jennypenny]

When I read paper books, it's with Ticonderoga in hand and I edit as I read. Ebooks have *almost* cured me of that habit.

I read more non-fiction than fiction, but only if you don't count work (I edit and review mostly fiction). I'm not into personal journals, but I keep one for notes on books and articles I've read, and also for interesting discussions and lectures. If a book or talk gets me interested in a subject, I tend to research it to death and I include the research in that journal. I keep a separate journal for religious material and research. (Are we calling that fiction or non-fiction? )

I'm going to give a shout out for fiction, and not just because it's my livelihood these days. I can't find it now, but I read a paper that said that fiction is a great way for people who have trouble picking up on social clues (like aspies) to learn how to communicate with other people. I also think it's a good way to engage the more human part of my brain and non-fiction doesn't always do that.

[daylen]

I always take notes. I go through many notebooks worth. I read about so many topics from nearly every scientific subject, without notes I will find myself in a loop of understanding since I tend to study in very short burst(INTP). My notes are never direct, and take the form of abstract(usually mathematical) models, with numerous side questions, visualizations, and conjectures. I will revisit my notes often to find ideas that I can expand on or questions that I can answer.

No notes, little recollection.

[BlueNote]

I read from chapter 1 to the last chapter and often don't find the rest of the book that useful. I sometimes feel like I am missing something by overlooking the introduction, preface etc. However I am usually disappointed by reading these parts.


I tend to write in the margins but also never seem to go back and use those notes.

One useful thing I occasionally do is create my own index at the end of the book referencing areas that aren't a part of the included index. Usually this is only for books with a bad or non-existent index.

I try to understand the central principles of the book and compare them to my own understanding of the world. If my own understanding of the world is improved so much the better, if not then I guess I wasted my time, hindsight is 20-20 , foresight is groping forward on a poorly lit forest path.

I read almost exclusively non-fiction, I prefer short elegant yet accessible pieces over long drawn out works.

[BRUTE]

no notes. if something doesn't make it into brute's mind, it's probably not worth remembering.

brute used to read non-fiction very linearly. but as he has read more books now, and finds most of them mostly fluff, he has started skipping a lot. chapter sounds like brute knows what it's about? skip. paragraph or section has too much noise? skip.

it's like this:
-there's infinite books out there, most of them available for free
-there's a finite amount brute can learn in a lifetime
-various works contain various signal-noise ratios
-neither the ratio nor the absolute wisdom-nugget-content can be determined beforehand
-the ratio can usually be determined after reading just a few pages, the nuggets cannot
-therefore, brute drops books with a low ration quickly, and reads greedily in search of high ratios

brute reads fiction completely normal, straight through. fiction works differently than non-fiction.