
Ask HN: How Do You Read? - vilvadot
Hi HN. Recently I have been wondering how other people read. I recently realized that once I finish a book I immediately replace it for the next one on my to-read list. As soon as I swap titles it kinda feels like the value of the previous book slowly starts to fade and gets lost. Obviously not all of it, and especially on novels I&#x27;m in for the ride and getting into the story. But in more informative&#x2F;instructive stuff I feel like there must be a &quot;better&quot; way to read and get the most out of each book.<p>For example, recently, I started taking notes into the margins and I find I feel more &quot;engaged&quot; to the reading experience and the content. So I wonder what is other people&#x27;s take on reading?
======
guidoism
Great question! In my fourth decade of life I’m finally figuring out the
optimal way to do this myself. I’ve forgotten so so many books over the years
that I supposedly read.

Read _How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading_ by
Mortimer Adler. ([https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/0671212095)) I’ve given this book to a bunch of people on my
teams as it also helps with communicating ideas which is vital as a
programmer.

The wikipedia page for it is a good place to get an overview of what it’s
about.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book)

Since reading it I’ve been keeping a notebook, some people might call it a
Commonplace Book, with interesting stuff from the book. I find that I get a
lot more from books from the act of writing it down and then reading those
notes later when I glance at them while looking something else up in the
notebook.

One big big big thing I learned from the book is to not read a non-fiction
book like it was a novel. There’s nothing wrong with skipping ahead and
finding out what happens later, in fact you should absolutely skim the book
first. I end up finishing a lot more books by doing this since so many books
aren’t actually worth careful reading. I am able to systematically skim a book
including the TOC and index and determine if it’s worth reading carefully. A
lot of books are so sparse with ideas that you can get most of them through
this method. Only the good books are worth going on to the second and third
stages and only the great ones the fourth stage.

~~~
guidoism
Somebody wrote "Not to sound rude, but how can one judge what idea one needs
to see as 'important' while skimming through the book if they have no clue of
what the book is about?" and then deleted it. I'd still like to reply because
it's a good question. Here goes...

That's a perfectly good question. I used to think that skimming was worthless,
only something that people who didn't actually care about information did.

But if you think about how you are constantly judging the value of information
everywhere throughout the entire day then you can see how we _have_ to make
some filtering decisions.

Systematic skimming is just another filter. If I'm going to dedicate 10 hours
to reading the book carefully it makes sense to get an overview of the ground
first. If the books I'm reading are from Alan Kay's list of greatest books you
should read then I'm going to not worry so much about the filtering aspect of
the skimming. If it's a shitty book with a catchy title in the business books
section of the library I'm going to be much more skeptical and the filtering
part of skimming is essential to not wasting time on crap.

Judge a book by its cover. Then judge it by its table of contents. Then judge
it by some passages you read that looked interesting. Don't commit to a book
until you've gotten a better feel for what's inside.

~~~
Advaith
I recently started using kindle highlights along with
[https://readwise.io/](https://readwise.io/) and it works like a charm!

~~~
submeta
Thank you very much for that tip! Tried it, fell in love with it immediately.
It imported my highlights from my Kindle and from my iBooks library and shows
me my Highlights in a much better way than Amazon's web interface is able to
do
([https://lesen.amazon.de/notebook?ref_=kcr_notebook_lib](https://lesen.amazon.de/notebook?ref_=kcr_notebook_lib))

Also, it allows me to export all of my highlights.

Finally it adds a gamification dimension, showing me random five hightlights
from my books.

PS: Through this site I learned that my Kindle highlights reside in a in file
called `My Clippings.txt` (in /Volumes/Kindle/documents/My Clippings.txt) This
is something I always wanted to know, because I have many books I uploaded to
my Kindle device via USB (so no clound sync available).

~~~
thisisit
What is the format of the 'My Clippings.txt' file? The reason I am asking is
because I use Google Play Books most of the time. All highlights in Google
Play Books is stored in Google Docs under "Highlights _Book_Name_" and I am
wondering if readwise works for those.

~~~
tristanho
Hey there, Readwise founder here.

Unfortunately 'My Clippings.txt' is a narrowly (and honestly, pretty awfully)
defined format that Kindle devices generate. So that won't work for Google
Play Books.

That being said, we want to build a separate Google Play Books importing tool
-- it's on our roadmap!

------
ch3ckmat3
When I read a book, in the middle of a paragraph, I start getting new ideas
related to the topic, and my mind shifts focus to the news ideas, while my
eyes keep tracing the text on the book, and obviously I'm not "reading" now,
I'm just wandering in my thoughts. And when I realize that I have drifted from
the book, I just go back to the text from which my mind drifted.

Some times this happens a lot, and I take so much time finishing what I am
reading.

Am I the only one, or you guys also have similar experience? Just curious.

~~~
betocmn
Same. For me, the only way to regain focus is to write the idea/worry down in
a Trello board to be rechecked in a few days. It helps me not only getting
back to the book but also giving time to let poor ideas die out organically.

~~~
doomjunky
I use this technique to counter distracting thoughts to concentrate on
reading, learning, or working. As of now i have 1288 textfiles.

------
stingraycharles
I feel like I’m an outlier here on HN, but I read very slowly. My mind
constantly switches back and forth between other stuff, and frequently have to
repeat (sections of) a page just because I wasn’t paying enough attention.

Needless to say, I don’t read a lot. Once in a while I find a book that
interests me, and usually it takes me around a week or two to complete (when
reading around 30 - 60 minutes a day).

~~~
mkagenius
> I wasn’t paying enough attention.

This is a problem. For few weeks I am trying to conquer it by focusing eyes
onto infinity while looking at the computer. It helps me wade off thoughts
other than whats printed (and I just read) on the screen. So read a line,
focus to infinity (and picturise what was said in the line), read next line.

Experiment is on only for a few weeks now, but it surely helps in attention
and wading off extraneous thoughts.

~~~
manjana
What do you mean by focusing your eyes onto infinity?

~~~
SiVal
Pretend your computer screen is a window with text printed on it. Look through
the text, through the window at the distant mountains on the horizon. The text
blurs and you see it with double vision because your eyes are focused at
infinity.

------
grumpy8
I'm always reading about 5 books in parallel, depending of my mood, the
context and my focus.

Usually:

    
    
      - biography or fiction book that I listen to while driving
    
      - hard science book when I know I can focus for a few hours. (I.e. Quantum mechanics or advanced algorithms)
    
      - 1-2 business or technical book that I read on kindle (Either from PC, ipad or my iphone)
    
      - various blog or pdfs open on my pc / iphone
    

The business / technical books are the ones that I read the fastest because I
can skip useless chapters and they're always one-click away when I have a few
minutes to wait.

The hard science are the ones that take the most time.. sometimes it can take
me weeks to read a few pages, and I often need to do side research to
understand what I'm reading.

I think the fact that I have different choices help me read more because if
I'm not in the mood for one thing there's usually something else interesting.
If I don't have interesting books then I'm more likely to waste time on reddit
/ HN / twitter. (I still browse HN from time to time when things are compiling
though :D)

~~~
theWheez
I'm nearly the same! I've found that I can't stick to a single book at one
time--when I'm jogging, I don't want to think about technical things, I want
to think of big picture ideas.

When I'm driving a distance, I want to get into the nitty gritty of something
technical or informative with an audiobook.

When I'm relaxing, I want something interesting but not directly related to
any of my work--I don't want to get my mind running on tasks I "should be
doing"

Very much the same with browsing the "eye candy" type forums, Twitter, HN,
Reddit. If I've got a good book, it seems to permeate my life for the duration
of reading.

------
mattlondon
Interesting... Lots of people seem to read a lot of books - I get lots of
recommendations from people at work and stuff. People talk about reading a
book a week or whatever.

I've never enjoyed reading books - right from childhood up to now. I try to
avoid it. I have gifts from birthdays and christmases from years ago where the
book sits entirely unread on the shelf for a year or two until I give it away
once the guilt has subsided.

The thought of starting reading a book from start to finish just fills me with
a sense of tedium and of wasting my time. I've not read a single book in
perhaps the last 20+ years.

I feel like there is a glimmer of how I feel from this question: "how to get
the most out of each book"... are you actually getting _anything at all_ by
reading each book? Are you like me and just feel like you _should_ , but
actually deep down you just don't really get anything from it?

Am I alone?

(P.S. I am a fluent reader and readily enjoy reading the news & technical docs
(and don't really watch TV or movies that much - maybe an hour or two a week),
but _books_ \- boy oh boy I simply couldn't care any less)

~~~
bnjemian
One of the things I’ve come to feel is that so much of the reading I do on the
web (news, etc.) is fundamentally ephemeral in it’s relevance to my life and
goals. Put another way, 90% of it doesn’t actually contribute to my knowledge
or personal growth — it won’t matter tomorrow or once I realize some immediate
goal. Sure, I get entertainment out of it, but that’s mostly it.

In my view, non-fiction books can be a good answer to that. Authors put a lot
of work into curating a set of ideas and (in some cases) mental tools, models,
etc. that have long-term, portable value across domains. They can also give
you good insight into how experts think about certain problems. Some of the
most thoughtful writers aren’t publishing their work in digestible chunks —
and many published before the Internet was even invented.

~~~
pulkitsh1234
on the contrary, I have found that reading stuff on the web is 90% of what
contributes to my knowledge. I can say that whatever I am today (in terms of
what I know), it is most probably because of the internet. Not just in terms
of computers, but just daily life, directly or indirectly.

I think it is just a matter of the source in your case, which may have led you
to feel that 90% of what you read doesn't contribute to your knowledge.

~~~
cgag
I've gained a ton though random wanderings on the internet and wikipedia and
so on but it's really not the same as reading one in depth work a person put
500+ hours of their life into.

~~~
harubi
Yeah, a book is researched, thoughtful and laying a long, and complicated
argument. Just the act of reading the long forms of ideas will make you better
at thinking.

Reading a Wikipedia page or watching a video, almost always dismisses the
ideas that lead to a conclusion, which is what you need if you want to THINK,
not walk around with containerized ideas that other people came up with.

~~~
s9w
But most books could be a 100th of the size they are

~~~
guidoism
Indeed. There's a reason for that: Most modern non-fiction books are the
result of a publisher giving a book deal to an author to expand an article
they wrote and people who are going to spend $20 on a book want to feel like
they are getting their money's worth (more pages == better deal).

Few modern authors are willing to buck the trend and publish a 100 page book,
but they do exist. Take a look at Christopher Alexander's _Notes on the
Synthesis of Form_.

------
bArray
Personally I think the most important part of reading is picking up the
general idea being conveyed, not to be able to precisely recall an idea. Like
a support vector machine (SVM), I think your brain mostly retains information
about model defying events. Most people won't remember what they had for a
meal a month ago, because the event likely had little surprise - but you'll
probably remember the meal that gave you food poisoning.

For example, I've read thousands upon thousands of papers, I generally accept
that I cannot recall all the information in them. What I can do on the other
hand is figure out exactly what I need to search for in order to find
information on a topic and the re-learning time is greatly reduced.

This general acceptance of not being able to recall precise information about
any given topic mostly came from my time in school as a child, where I
realized the teachers were not so much teaching us topics for the real world,
but giving us the framework to learn any topic.

~~~
chui1989
I second. Reading books for me is not about memorizing everything about it,
rather it leaves a dent in my memory so that later it can be retrieved quickly
when needed.

------
_____s
In my opinion, reading is more for shaping your thoughts over time. I
generally don't read for recall value except for technical things, and even
there, it's better to build a good mental model of the subject through a
combination of reading and exercises, then use a book as a reference.

For non-technical books, I've very rarely seen any value in taking
comprehensive notes (except highlights). I read those on a Kindle, so it's
easy to highlight and reference highlights later.

~~~
kprkpr
> In my opinion, reading is more for shaping your thoughts over time.

Absolutely agree. I often liken reading (at least reading fiction) to the
leaking basket fable [0]. I'm not sure of it's origin but the linked
description is in the context of reading Buddhist spritual texts. This mindset
has also made reading much more enjoyable for me, because I've stopped caring
whether or not I can instantly recall details of books that I've read.

[0] [https://www.itstimetomeditate.org/leaking-basket-indian-
fabl...](https://www.itstimetomeditate.org/leaking-basket-indian-fable/)

~~~
ellius
On the other hand, recalling the books and passages that really resonate with
you is useful and pleasant. Schopenhauer said, "Any book which is at all
important should be re-read immediately." I agree with the recommendations of
"How to Read a Book." I also really like Montaigne and Seneca, who advocate
not reading in a manic fashion but rather finding the books that speak to you
deeply and re-reading them frequently. There will always be more content than
you can consume, and while I value curiosity and exploration, there is also a
lot of value in absorbing the most important lessons deeply. It also helps you
weaken your brain's inborn novelty addiction and encourages prolonged effort
towards a goal (deep understanding), which is a better route to satisfaction
than vacuuming up every new experience you can find.

------
theboywho
It all depends on how you define "finishing" a book. I want to argue that once
you tweak your definition, you'll no longer have a problem with forgetting
information from a book.

This might be off topic but let me explain:

On many occasions, I have witnessed people doing pushups, but at the end of
their counting, they do half-assed pushups, so you could see that they are
more interested in "finishing" their goal of 10, 15 or 20 repetitions than
actually doing the exercise correctly (doing the exercise correctly could end
up with them doing only 5 correct pushups)

Reading books is the same, most people are only interested in the idea of
reading books, like the idea of doing sport, to "keep healthy", but don't
actually enjoy the journey. So people would set arbitrary rules of "2 or 3
books a month" for example.

So here's what I do: \- I changed my definition of "finishing a book" to
"never". I stopped trying to read 2 books a month because it no longer has any
meaning in my system, but also, no matter my progress through a book, it
doesn't matter at all.

Never finishing a book is actually true: a book chapter can send me in a
journey over the internet looking for more information on that particular
subject, or re-think about the previous chapter because now I have new
insight, etc. So really, I never finish my books and it's exactly why it's
cool. It's like swimming because you like it VS swimming to reach the other
side.

Finally, I don't remember every word of what I have read in the past years,
but it sure shaped who I am today, the choices I made, the interests I have,
etc. So it's ok to forget, what matters is the journey and what you get out of
it, a book never quits your reading list once it gets there, unless you only
care about counting your "done" list.

------
disabled
This is slightly off topic but some people may find this setup interesting. I
have a print-related disability, so I use screen readers to speak printed
material to me. I actually prefer synthesized speech over human narrated
audio. The screen readers I use:

* Voice Dream Reader (available on iOS and Android, but it is much better on iOS)

* Kurzweil 3000 (available on Windows and MacOS), plus Kurzweil3000.com (on any OS)

I have access to an amazing library, which is specifically designed for people
with print-related disabilities, called Bookshare.org, which interfaces with
both Voice Dream Reader and Kurzweil 3000.

I use Voice Dream Reader on an iPhone when driving or on the go (when I want
to be discrete), to read books to me. I can usually understand 99%+ of what is
being read while driving.

Also, when I am on the go, I will take my Surface Go with me and use Kurzweil
3000, which gives me a tablet-like experience. I also have a 17" laptop at
home which I tremendously enjoy using for immersive reading with Kurzweil
3000. I can also take a bunch of really cool notes on it too. Another cool
feature is that I can save super high quality mp3s of synthesized speech to my
phone using Kurzweil 3000, if I want to.

The audio quality is stellar on both, but I have a USB sound card that I use
on the Windows machines, known as a Sound BlasterX G6, to make it even better.
I also have a comfortable gaming headset which I use on the Windows machines.

If there is a book that is not available on Bookshare.org, I will buy a
physical copy, go to the local Fedex|Kinko's to get the book binding cut, then
I will scan it with a Fujitsu Scansnap iX1500, which has a duplex automatic
document feeder.

~~~
nyolfen
i like the idea of voice dream reader in theory, but in practice i find the
voice synth kind of poor and difficult to listen to. i should probably just
subscribe to audible but the reason i wanted it was for audio of pirated
ebooks.

~~~
disabled
Sorry for the late reply.

Voice synthesis takes getting used to, and it is much easier to deal with if
you have to rely on it for a print-related disability. The voices on Voice
Dream Reader, such as Sharon or Heather, are excellent compared to the stock
voices on iOS/Android.

You may want to try getting a subscription to the digital databases at Houston
Public Library (if you live outside the state of Texas, otherwise it is free)
before shelling out money for an Audible subscription. For $20/6 months or
$40/year, they have one of the best digital media databases in the country
(there are also a few other libraries of similar caliber. You also get premium
access (including the app) to Lynda.com for that price, in addition to a ton
of audio books.

~~~
nyolfen
very cool! i'm in DFW so the houston library service sounds great. thanks for
the suggestion!

~~~
disabled
You're welcome! I'm in Houston. The link to apply for a card:
[https://houstonlibrary.org/my-link-library-card-
registration](https://houstonlibrary.org/my-link-library-card-registration)

------
gatherhunterer
It has been found that writing book reports increases retention of the
material. You don’t have to actually write a formal report to take advantage
of that, though. Try to work up a habit of talking to people whom you see
often (coworkers, family and friends) about what you read. Listen to them for
ideas and be their sounding board and then use them in the same way. Reiterate
what you learned, try to extrapolate into new ideas, make criticisms and
practice oral book reporting. Humans are linguistic creatures, thinking and
verbal expression are closely connected in content and quality.

------
rossdavidh
If it's fiction, I am just reading. If it's nonfiction but not for learning a
skill that I will need to use, again, I am just reading. The closest I get to
"notes" is that I write a book review on Goodreads a week or two after I
finish, which usually results in me going back and looking up a few things.

If it's a book I'm reading in order to acquire a certain skill, then I have to
stop periodically and do the thing it says (e.g. in programming, or a foreign
language). Not even notes would be enough to make it stick.

------
davidscolgan
I recently realized I have ADD minus the hyperactive. I never was able to
finish books until I started listening to audiobooks with Audible.

I have a subscription and generally pick up a new book I've heard of that
interests me right away either with a credit or just buying it.

This allows me to read while walking and riding the bus and doing the dishes
and generally turns uninteresting chores into something interesting while also
allowing me to read. Something about having someone read to me is way less
difficult than reading it myself.

I generally don't worry about explicitly remembering anything unless there's
something particularly amazing. I read nonfiction mostly and my theory is that
the goal is to generally educate myself so that my worldview is shifted to be
more accurate, and instead of asking "what would that book advise me to do?" I
can ask, "What would I do?" and what I would do has been influenced by the
book.

Good books I just read more than once. It's much faster for me to listen to a
book twice than to read it carefully once. And regardless, someone said
something like it's better to read the best book 100 times than 100 books 1
time.

My record is 4 times that I read Antifragile by Taleb. A scarce few are 3
times, several twice. As I once heard, keep reading books until the ideas
start to repeat themselves.

Maybe I don't remember everything as much as I would if I took copious notes,
but I certainly get a lot of books read this way (sometimes one in a few days
if it's good enough) and it's in a way that happens without effort. I've been
mulling on the idea generally that best practices that I won't actually follow
are inferior to slightly less than best practices that I will do.

~~~
tony
Audible is absolutely epic.

On audible, I highly recommend lectures from The Teaching Company / Great
Courses.

Great narration: [https://www.audible.com/pd/Platos-Republic-
Audiobook/B01CO38...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Platos-Republic-
Audiobook/B01CO38QBA), [https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Art-of-War-
Audiobook/B00URXOQ...](https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Art-of-War-
Audiobook/B00URXOQ1E) (familiar voice to you?)

I've also had one of the worst narrations I've ever heard:
[https://www.amazon.com/Monkey/dp/B0162SWL4G/](https://www.amazon.com/Monkey/dp/B0162SWL4G/).
I believe it was delisted on audible.com

------
michalu
I have also found that I often forget entire books, and that quality of
reading beats quantity.

I use kindle and take a lot of notes. Then whenever I am in a situation where
I don't have a kindle and not much to do, such in public transport, instead of
going on social media I use kindle app on my phone a flick though the notes,
or turn them into flashcards and basically go over all the main points.

Because you're taking notes throughout the book, you've created a kind of a
map so it's very easy to refresh what you've read.

I also like the idea of re-reading the best books again and again. I've got
this from Naval's podcast.

Some books are the condensed life knowledge, to read it once you won't get all
the points. With great books, every re-reading you learn something new. It's
better to acquire somebody's "life knowledge" in full depth and completely
than accumulate a high number of shallowly read books.

------
wrnr
I've configured my mac to read-aloud any text I've selected when I press the
option+cmd+v keyboard shortcut. It's available through the accessibility
settings. There is also the option the increase the reading speed. The
standard text-to-speech vocalisation is actually quite good, it avoids strain
on the eyes, help you detect spelling errors when proof reading a text, and it
can save you a lot of time.

Another tip for my multi-lingual friends is to install the voices[1] command
line tool to quickly switch the language, or use the polyglot[2] tool to do
the same thing through the menu bar.

[1] [https://github.com/mklement0/voices](https://github.com/mklement0/voices)
[2] [https://github.com/Fredmf/polyglott](https://github.com/Fredmf/polyglott)

~~~
tylersgordon
I do the same thing, using accessibility text-to-speech, but I use Karabiner-
Elements to map my caps lock key to speak. I also use the text-to-speech on
iPhone to turn my articles into "podcasts", by swiping down.

------
vilius
Put the book on the table. Open Evernote (or similar) and start a new note.
Put on the headphones and play the same title as audiobook. Set play speed at
2x. Read along. For every page read write down a summarizing sentence along
with page number.

Hearing, reading and writing helps memorize. After completing the book you
will have a nice summary written in your own words that’s easy to recall if
you need it in future.

Haven’t tried with fiction books, but for non fiction works really well.

------
cyneox
To be honest: I was waiting for this kind of thread for years. I've literally
tried to absorbe everything you've put together. I will definitely have a look
at "How to read a book".

Now some words about my reading habbits:

\- Most of time I read non-fiction books. I read newspapers, interesting
articles I've found on the Web and some books.

\- I use an E-Reader to read my stuff (for many years I've used a Kindle 3rd
Generation which got replaced by a Pocket InkBook 3 [1])

\- Everything that I find interesting gets highlighted on the E-Reader. If I'm
reading a real (paper) book I'll use my notebook and make some notes in a
bullet journal style. [2])

\- To organize my highlights I use TiddlyWiki [3] and some really nice plugin
[4] to organize books.

Regarding Tiddlywiki: I think this is one of the most underrated tool out
there since it can be used for everything. You can filter and tag your content
(book highlights, ideas etc.) in a way that fits your needs.

Cheers,

Cyneox

Links:

[1]: [https://www.pocketbook-int.com/ge/products/pocketbook-
inkpad...](https://www.pocketbook-int.com/ge/products/pocketbook-inkpad-3)

[2]: [https://bulletjournal.com/](https://bulletjournal.com/)

[3]: [https://tiddlywiki.com/](https://tiddlywiki.com/)

[4]:
[http://inmysocks.tiddlyspot.com/#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Finmysock...](http://inmysocks.tiddlyspot.com/#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Finmysocks%2FBookmarks)

------
alan_n
Why do you feel you need to remember them so much? and that there even is
something to get out of every book? I feel if something you come across is
truly indispensable to know, you'll remember it. Most things aren't so we
don't.

In fact, I try to keep as much stuff OUT of my brain as possible. I think of
my brain as an index, the smaller it is, the better. In relation to books,
this means I highlight anything I find interesting, but otherwise rarely do
much else Also just because you don't remember a book doesn't mean it didn't
change you. After I read a book, if it was good, it will probably be on my
mind for a while as I relate things I learned in it to things I knew.

Later if I want to look something up I'll remember what book it was in, just
not the specifics. I don't just do this for books either, I do it for webpages
all the time. Currently I am using an extension called Liner to save
highlights. For things I'm actively researching for some reason or another, I
extract all the highlights out when I'm finished and save them to a note, (I
used to do this in Evernote, but I've since switched to Scrivener).

If a book has particularly important information but is dense, and I know I'll
need the info later, but later it's very likely I'll forget it, for example,
for school, I'll just make nice study-like notes, extracting the useful stuff.
In fact, for school, those notes were my study notes, and I would just take
exams then promptly forget everything. In case I actually needed the info, the
notes existed.

Now that I think about it, this is all why I took to writing lots of comments
in my code. Makes it a breeze to drop and pick up projects again. Cannot
understand pro-"self-documenting code" people. I've also started documenting
any large installs, complicated setups, etc, in gists lately. Very useful.

------
mnemonicsloth
_> once I finish a book I immediately replace it for the next one on my to-
read list._

This right here is your problem. The way to really learn a book is to read it
and then solve a lot of problems out of it, referring to it often. If it's a
programming book (that's ideal), write programs that do what you read about.
If it's a textbook there should be a lot of exercises for you to do. If there
aren't any exercises you'll have to make up your own. That's a slow process,
but it's still a more reliable route to deep understanding than reading
superficially and never getting there.

That said, you remember more than you think you do. You may not recall
everything you read, but a lot of that information is in your head somewhere,
ready to act as foundation and building material if you ever visit the
material again. You'd be amazed how much more you can get out of a book just
by skimming it a second time, once you've got the big ideas.

------
kashyapc
Speaking of reading and retention, there was a controversial article titled:
"Why books don't work"[1].

It was also recently discussed here on HN[2].

As a serious reader, I took "offense" at first the sweeping title. But when I
completely read the article, the author's contention was largely with poorly
written books and lectures work ... which wouldn't make for a sensational
title.

    
    
        - - -
    

As to the original question, for non-fiction (and even for some fiction, like
by Iain. M Banks) I take a lot of hand-written notes while reading. Of course,
it's "slower", but so be it -- if I'm reading a valuable book, I want to take
my sweet time.

[1] [https://andymatuschak.org/books/](https://andymatuschak.org/books/)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19887424](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19887424)

~~~
mbrock
The author was interviewed on EconTalk recently.

~~~
kashyapc
Yeah, I was listening to it (haven't finished it yet) where he did admit the
title could've been more neutral.

------
emersonrsantos
I cannot read without a pencil. I highlight the important passages and then I
make an effort of memorizing that passages. Think you're a monk and are
reading the Bible, reading by verses and memorizing, incorporating that into
your knowledge. Take notes of related ideas, expand the text, don't be
reductionist, think of the whole.

~~~
sorum
> I cannot read without a pencil

If I had to choose one recommendation to give others, this would be it. You
don't read with your eyes, you read with your pen.

Read fewer (better) books and really _internalize_ them. This 99% of the time
requires you to take notes that you revisit throughout and after your read.

------
phonebucket
> As soon as I swap titles it kinda feels like the value of the previous book
> slowly starts to fade and gets lost.

I think you're being a bit harsh on yourself here. If you understand and learn
from a text when you're reading it, I would contend that it's likely you've
learnt quite a lot from that book without realising it.

To me, the important part is the next book: while reading it, do I understand
it, is it interesting? That means that I've come to that book with the correct
prerequisites, so I am happy that my previous books have served me well.

Now, to answer your question: I am pretty undisciplined. I generally read
programming books and maths textbooks. I jump from book to book. Sometimes I
start in the middle, sometimes I start from the beginning. Sometimes I feel
the same concept baffles me, so I like to read about it from multiple sources.
But once I grok them, those chapters in new books are skippable.

------
Causality1
Reading for reference and reading for pleasure are two different things, and
I'm only going to address the latter.

Reading is an experience, not a chore. The value of reading comes from the
reading, not from the "have read". The fraction of information you retain from
your hobby reading is essentially irrelevant.

------
caryd
I type notes in a program that allows searching. I dislike digging through 300
pages to find that one quote I liked.

~~~
madmaze
How do you structure your notes? I do the same, but I am often conflicted
whether to take notes by chapter/section or by topic.

~~~
johnisgood
Hmm, would putting labels work? That could include the chapter number, section
number, and keywords. I usually go with topic and include the page number.

This is a great question though. What features could one add to a hypothetical
PDF viewer that could help us? Sometimes I feel like having a separate text
file is not sufficient, or not convenient enough. Most of the books I read do
have a summary per section, perhaps I could take a screenshot of them.
Additionally I could use the PDF viewer to highlight sentences, and add a
feature to this PDF viewer that would allow me to cycle through them. Thoughts
and/or ideas?

------
btrettel
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQ3R](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQ3R)

As recommended by the book "Your memory: how it works and how to improve it"
by Ken Higbee. As I recall, Higbee says there are many reading comprehension
methods, but the fundamentals are all the same. The book's dated, but Higbee
argues that research backs up the fundamental ideas. I don't know what the
latest research says, but I doubt the basic ideas here have been overturned.
Maybe they've been refined.

One important thing I learned from the book was that speed is not always good.
Your need to process and organize the information to best understand and
remember it. SQ3R is basically a series of steps to do just that.

Note that I read almost exclusively non-fiction and SQ3R isn't meant for
fiction.

------
temo4ka
It has been already mentioned in comments, Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book
is the book for you. It treats reading as learning and the authors’ goal is to
teach you how to read expository works with the aim of understanding by
actively /and/ skillfully engaging with the material.

You’ll learn how to discover, interpret and judge books, and how to not waste
time on poorly written books or those that don’t contain much substance. The
core of the book is part 2: the rules of analytical reading, which are general
rules applicable to expository works. Part 3 then discusses their
modifications for particular types of literature: practical books, history,
philosophy, science, social science, fiction.

Highly recommend it. You don’t want to miss it if you’re serious about
reading, that is thinking, growing, educating and enriching yourself.

------
shadowmatter
I have a horrible memory when it comes to the detail of books, movies, etc.
(But thankfully I can remember what I've coded, or else I'd probably be out of
a job.)

I mostly read non-fiction. To improve my recall over the past 7 years, I type
up notes as I read. It's made the process of reading much slower, but it has
helped when I've needed to recall some example or detail or framework of a
book.

I did this (selfishly) for myself, but decided to upload my notes at
[https://github.com/mgp/book-notes](https://github.com/mgp/book-notes).
(Shameless plug I suppose?) The README explains exactly how I take the notes –
but essentially there's no shortcut. I have my text editor open and simply
type notes as I read.

~~~
arrosenberg
Hey cool — I use a very similar practice of writing up notes in Markdown.
Although I haven't published them, this is inspiring me to do so!

One thing I do differently - I read the book through first, making highlights
and shorthand notes anywhere I see something interesting. I do a faster,
second read-through at my computer with the Kindle annotations and the text
editor side-by-side. As you said, doing it at the same time slows things down
tremendously, and I found that it sapped my momentum and I got fewer books
read overall. Do you experience the opposite, or is it something you learned
to work through?

------
werber
I always have an audiobook in rotation. I keep a book and all my current
magazines in my bathroom (generally smaller bites, collections of essays,
poetry), a book next to the couch (usually non fiction), one next to my bed
(always fiction), and then I have a different book in each of my back packs.
I'm usually reading 5 - 10 at a time and unless it's like gravity's rainbow, I
try to finish each within a month of starting. I studied literature in college
and used to read one book at a time and was very intense about it, but reading
a ton of different things at once is more fun and I find myself making
connections between things I wouldn't make otherwise

~~~
werber
Oh and I read a ton of articles from here at work

------
craigbaker
Try reading a good text multiple times, even to the point of memorizing it.
Especially in the past, many cultures viewed memorization as essential to
truly engaging with a text. Another way to engage more deeply with a good,
classic text is to read commentary on it.

Obviously you can't treat everything you read this way, but for a few really
good classics this has been a fruitful approach for me. For a novel, maybe you
could just memorize a few passages. When you have the words rolling around in
your head, you'll find that you recall them at just the right time.

------
gbachik
Audiobooks. My father used to read to me growing up and while I’ve tried to
get into reading a few times I’m just a terribly slow reader. I have to read
the same page 4/5 times to grasp any situation and honestly I just feel like I
don’t have the time to read.

Audiobooks have single handedly fixed all of this for me. I’ve been able to
listen to and grasp things like the dune series and how to win friends and
influence people (unabridged).

Simply listen to an audiobook in your car or headphones on your way to work or
at the gym or before you sleep <3

------
proverbialbunny
> Hi HN. Recently I have been wondering how other people read. I recently
> realized that once I finish a book I immediately replace it for the next one
> on my to-read list. As soon as I swap titles it kinda feels like the value
> of the previous book slowly starts to fade and gets lost. Obviously not all
> of it, and especially on novels I'm in for the ride and getting into the
> story. But in more informative/instructive stuff I feel like there must be a
> "better" way to read and get the most out of each book.

It's rather interesting that what you're talking about here is a key idea in
the Buddhist philosophy. It's that material possessions only temporarily
provide happiness. As a result most people spend their whole life moving from
one possession to the next to get that temporary high over and over again.

If you're reading fiction to enjoy it like you would a tv show or a movie,
that happiness will fade as you find. And honestly, that's okay.

Buddhism's take on it is to seek out enjoyment that lasts, which sounds like
what you're doing by posting this post. However, enjoyment that lasts is a
different kind of enjoyment. It's not addictive and it's harder to get
started, but imho is worth it. It's also more subtle than the addictive kind
of happiness. Buddhism's solution is to cut out these addictions and work
towards enlightenment which is a life long kind of happiness. However imho,
that advice isn't for everyone. It comes down to what you want out of life.

------
scitechx35
It has changed from treating them as sacrosanct and precious (although some of
them are), to treating them as a collection of blog post and articles. So now
whenever I start reading a book, I just try to skim through it initially. If
there's an interesting chapter or concept, I will read it thoroughly. Yes
sometime, you might miss some interesting concept while skimming but that's
ok. It's rare and pros outweighs cons.

I feel there's so much abundance of knowledge out there that it's important to
curate what you read. Sometime you can read the entire book in a day. Sometime
even a single page might take you days to read and understand. So it's also
about the density of knowledge and content in a book.

Also, sometime, I will read multiple books in parallel based on my
requirements or mood. One thing that does help is your highlights/notes (both
digital/physical). Having some system to refer back in future always help.

Yes, you will still forget a lot of what you have read but that's ok. We tend
to remember the important stuff. And in future if we want to gig deep, we can
always come back and read again.

Some of these concepts are also explained by Naval Ravikant in one of his
interviews. So you can also watch them.

------
itcrowd
I realize I'm a bit late to this party but here's how I read a book I don't
want to forget about:

1\. Before starting, take a fresh sheet of paper and enumerate the chapter
numbers of the book. Each on a separate line.

2\. After finishing each chapter: stop reading, contemplate the main message
and try to pen it down at the corresponding chapter numbers of step 1. Focus
on writing it in your own words / rephrasing. Key question for chapters >1:
what information did I forget to mention in my microsummary until now? Include
that in the new summary, don't edit the old one.

3\. Turn the page of your sheet after completing the book. Now write a (max)
1-page summary of the book _without looking at your other notes_.

4\. Compare the summary with your notes. Satisfied? Ready! Not satisfied? Get
another sheet and rewrite your 1-page summary, taking extra care to mention
the missed points of the first summary.

My experience is that you don't really need the chapter notes while writing
the summary, since it is now part of your long-term memory because of the
writing.

Bonus: 1-page, personal summary of key points in the book you just read. If
you forgot the points of a book, take it off the shelf and consult your 1-page
summary.

YMMV but it works for me.

------
axegon_
Kind of depends on the book to be honest. For programming or tech-related
textbooks, I make an extremely isolated and peaceful environment. Complete
silence, phone on vibration, just plenty of water to drink at arms length and
that's it. And my brain tends to be the most focused at night, which is
helpful. But for all other books too: I tend to be a bit of a fanatic when it
comes to peace and silence. I often end up reading 3-4 or 5 books at a given
time, which is why it takes me multiple weeks to finish them as opposed to a
day or two. I'll jump between all of them at random, forcing me to go back
15-20 pages each time. I have no idea why, this is how I've been reading since
I was a child and never managed to get out of the habit. But with those I tend
to be a bit more tolerant to external factors such as noise and other people
so I can read just about anywhere with a tolerable amount of noise: buses,
parks, planes, stations, airports and so on. I can't listen to any music while
reading but I might resort to shoving a pair of earbuds in my ears for noise
isolation without playing anything.

------
dtroode
I read on computer or phone. If it's literature for work, I need to practice
and not only read. I read something and trying to do it, as a web developer.
If it's other literature I read it on my phone, when I have free time. If I
read literature for work it takes a lot of time to thinking and doing
exercises (if they exists). Spending a lot of time or reading and practicing
helps to remember information

------
mooreds
I used to write a review for my blog or Amazon (though they have horrendous
ToS for reviews). Haven't done that for a long time though. But when I did it
was nice:

* forced to review and outline major themes of the book, or at least why it was worth reading

* could go back and see what I thought about the book later

* helps other people, even if occasionally

My SO uses goodreads and enjoys both the ability to give a review and the
score keeping nature of it.

------
dobladov
I keep a very simple note with the parts of the text that are worth to
remember in the future, separated by chapters, normally I update the list as
long as I'm reading a chapter and then I review it at the end of it mostly to
delete.

After finishing the book I do another review simplifying the most important
parts and then I add them to Anki.

After that using SRS helps me to refresh the knowledge about the book.

------
SirensOfTitan
As others have mentioned, How To Read a Book does a great job educating on the
skill of reading.

Most books I just read once fairly rapidly: skipping over parts I don’t get or
find uninteresting. Just a few books ever get an ‘analytical’ reread.

I don’t keep a notebook generally to keep reads portable, I instead talk about
what I’m reading pretty aggressively as a strategy to memorize and absorb
knowledge.

------
Baeocystin
For technical books: I read a passage, think about it a bit, then either re-
read the same section and digest further, or move on to the next segment.

I _do not_ take notes or highlight sections- I have found that these pull me
out of the mindset of thinking about what I'm reading, and instead put me in
to the mindset of how best to document what I'm reading. The two points of
view do not overlap as much as you might think.

For books I read for enjoyment, I take in the words at a reasonable pace and
build the scenes in my mind, just enjoying the flow.

Usually I read a book in one sitting, but if I find myself interrupted, when I
start again I'll go back a chapter or two to ensure that I'm back in to things
by the time I get to where I left off.

I re-read books I've enjoyed regularly. If anything, it is even more enjoyable
than the first time through, particularly when life experience allows you to
appreciate a thought in the book that you didn't fully grasp on earlier
readings. It's great fun!

------
mattmcknight
For technical books, I often try to build something as it goes along, usually
not exactly following their examples, but making something slightly different,
which seems to require exactly understanding things and not just grabbing the
code examples.

For math and computer science books, I definitely like to write code to do
things. Particularly in math I have the hardest time remembering which greek
letter means what thing in which context, and well formed programming language
variable names make things much clearer.

For other stuff, I try to build an outline of the theory of the book and come
up with some actions I can take to see how the ideas would work in the
contexts I have available to me. It's a little difficult to take notes
depending on the context, particularly with audiobooks. Sometimes I will read
other people's summaries to see if I missed something.

For fiction and poetry I don't really do anything special except copy down
particular quotes I enjoy.

------
geuis
Though people’s opinions may differ I consider audiobooks a form of reading,
at least being read to. My habits have evolved over the years so that I only
consume entertainment books via audio. When it comes to non fiction, mostly
technical docs or news items, I generally need text with no audio in the
background to really ingest the details.

------
pyxelr
Non-fiction is what I mainly consume nowadays on my Kindle Oasis 3. I try to
buy the books directly from Amazon, as then all my highlights sync to my
Goodreads account so that even other users can view them.

In the case when the book is side-loaded, I load the highlights using
clippings [1] service. The habit of taking notes significantly increases the
consumption time, but in the end, I remember much more.

When the book isn't highly technical, such as biographies or self-development
books, I tend to listen to the audiobooks with an Android app [2].

[1] [https://www.clippings.io/](https://www.clippings.io/)

[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acmeandroi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acmeandroid.listen&hl=en)

------
corodra
Not too much to add compared to everyone else. But something I learned about
myself, I have to break up non-fiction with the occasional fiction book. I
like reading history, biography, informative books nowadays. Not so much
technical anymore. After four or five non-fiction, each about a week or two to
read depending on density and length, I start to putter out on motivation to
read. A decent, fun, pulpy fiction book recharges me faster than taking a
break. So, I do 3 to 4 non-fiction, then a sci-fi or fantasy book. That keeps
me going decently. I also don't beat myself up anymore for going a few days
without reading either. A week, I'll force myself to get back on track.

I don't finish a book if it's dull. If I'm constantly getting bored or feel
like the information is just someone preaching out of their ass or pointless,
I'll either skim the book or just drop it. I don't feel bad about this
anymore. My reading list is so damn long, what's the point wasting my time on
books I was wrong for picking? Sunk cost fallacy and all.

I've learned my lesson the hardway and I'm very, very careful about business
books. Especially the pop-culture ones. I only read it with reviews by people
I respect highly and they must be critical of the book. If it's just praising
the book, I refuse to get it. Or the book is a few years old and is still
respected. So many books in business are such dogshit. It's amazing.

I do keep a reading list in excel and add to it constantly. Sometimes add some
notes how I felt about it. A lot of times I add books mentioned in other books
I'm reading.

If the book is bought and not from the library, I underline with a nice black
Uniball pen and mark the top of the page. Highlighters can get really annoying
on my eyes if there's a lot of it. I learned that from high school. My eyes
went out of focus with too much highlighter on the page (probably just me). If
I'm reading the book with specific purpose, I'll make notes in the book
itself.

------
SoylentOrange
Sorry OP to hijack your thread

I skimmed through the comments and folks have said they read slowly, but also
say they average about a book a week. Is that really true? How many books
would you say you finish on average per year?

I read quite quickly but I average about a book every 2 weeks because of other
commitments (consistently ~25 per year)

~~~
unixhero
25 per year is phenomenal.

------
dredmorbius
I largely read nonfiction, largely to gain an understanding of questions or
problems or methods. I'll read fiction for pleasure occasionally, and
certainly have in the past. That's almost always far easier.

I read actively, and am a fan of Mortimer Adler's _How to Read a Book_ ,
mentioned by others. The methods it describes are much as I'd developed on my
own, though I've picked up a few pointers.

I consider books _resources_ to aid in an _inquiry_. I've an idea of the
questions I'm interested in, and exploring the development, presentation, and
explorations of those questions guides _what_ I read.

My "to read" pile is ... unmanageable. I've collected thousands of books and
articles, which I consider not an obligation to read, but a pre-vetted
resource to dig into in more depth. Bibliographies, footnotes, annotations,
and references within works are very useful at turning up other works.
Generally, my highest priority is on _foundational_ works within a field, or
_revolutionary_ works which either break new ground _or_ synthesize existing
ideas into a new whole. As I've studied, I've found myself generally _less_
interested in the most recent material -- it's often far less substantive than
earlier works, much rehashes older concepts (with or without credit or
reference), though sometimes in the context of some contemporary crisis or
issue. (Much of HN's submissions and discussion fall into this class.)

Cultivating my own discipline to work through material I've alreday surfaced
is difficult, though I've at least skimmed through a reasonably large share.
Tools for organising and managing a large personal research library are sadly
lacking, and progress toward realising the dream outlined by Vannevar Bush in
his Memex, or Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu, has been sadly disappointing.

I'm actively looking for tips at improving my tools and methods. Reducing the
reading pile being a principle objective.

------
srirangr
I read 20+ books a year. I don't finish most of them, re-read some chapters
from the old books. I underline stuff and I go back to the underlined things
at the end of reading a book. I prefer reading hard copies and at any point if
I've to look at the page number, I realise that the content is not worth the
time. I skim through. If I still don't find it interesting. I leave it. It's
okay to leave a book in the middle. Most books have a single point to make and
the entire book is about examples around that point. If you understood the
point already, there's no need to dig in further.

It's human tendency to forget things. So re-reading stuff I find valuable
helps me more than reading lots of new books.

------
zenlot
If it's not technical book I usually go for an audiobook while doing other
things, e.g running, gym. Then I open the section in Play Books and skim
through what I've listened, highlight important stuff and it creates a
document with my highlights automatically and saves it to drive. I've found
that doing this way really helps with information retention and I can do much
more books with this method.

Also, if anyone knows good open source alternative which would work on mobile
and web in a way Play Books works - would be great to try. I've seen few
libraries e.g epub.js and also NextCloud has its way to display uploaded
books, but couldn't find a fully working alternative.

------
abhiyerra
I think there are really two sets of books. Books that you need to really dive
into deep and slow. Others that can be skimmed quickly. I think it is
important to discern the difference between the two and have a good mixture.

The slow books take me a while to read. Each section I read I like to think
about it and write a short blurb for myself to remind myself or apply it to a
bigger body of knowledge or put it into use.

The books I skim usually don’t need to be read completely and it is important
to just gather the broad overview and take the notes at the end. But for these
I try to just summarize the 2-3 major points that the book is making at the
end so I can go back and remember them if I need to.

------
agentultra
I keep journals of books I read. I generally record interesting thoughts I had
while reading and impressions when I’m done.

For more technical books like maths I tend to keep workbooks for each one. I
do the exercises and distill my understanding in notes as I go.

------
peter303
95% of my books come from the Denver Public Library new book shelf. They have
an excellent selection. I reserve items from them I read in online book
reveals and see at the bookstore. I probably read several $1000s of books this
way.

------
avip
My prominent reading strategy is called (only by me I guess) _skip and cut_. I
read the same way I listen to music - If something is boring I skip. If I skip
too much I throw the book away for another.

I'm not claiming this methodology to be original, smart, useful or mature.
It's just the answer to the posed question.

[E: also this seems a fair opportunity to quote my favorite author]

 _Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness:
expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a
few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist
and to offer a summary, a commentary._

------
sebst
I experienced the same: reading one book after another felt like information
overload, taking notes helped a bit.

In addition to taking notes, I started to summarise chapters or the whole
book.

This takes significantly more time, but the effect is huge.

Given the amount of great books and my limited human life style, I also
sometimes have the feeling of missing something. The FOMO is a concept
fundamentally tied to the human psychology. I try to reduce it by categorising
my reading list into A, B and C books (where A books get my biggest
attention). My policy is to read and summarise A books, speed read B books and
rely on someone else's summaries for C books.

------
bigred100
Open book & read it til done then switch. Anything I care about will involve
me reading multiple texts on the topic or eventually rereading so I generally
don’t worry about figuring everything out. Understanding takes time.

------
cryptozeus
One thing I learned and adapted from Naval Ravikanth (podcast with tim
ferriss...google it) is to treat reading books like blog posts. So if I am
interested in a book, I don’t have to start from the beginning. Just start
browsing, open any chapter, read through it and continue if I relate with
author otherwise close it down. You also don’t have to finish the book if you
loose interest half way. Another unthinkable thing I do now is switch between
books while reading them. Lastly re read books if you really like them. I read
deepwork and when I finished I started it again right away.

------
eddyerburgh
It depends on the type of book.

For technical books, I take notes as I read. Once I reach the end of a
chapter, I reword the rough notes and research anything I didn't fully
understand. You can read my notes if you're interested:
[https://notes.eddyerburgh.me/](https://notes.eddyerburgh.me/)

For fiction books, I highlight paragraphs I find interesting as I read on my
kindle . When I finish, I use my highlights to write a short review of the
book.

I've stopped reading most self-help/ business books now. I just read other
people's notes on them instead.

------
zJayv
Few ideas:

* this one from Paul Graham: you retain more from reading than you think you do [http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html)

* this one from James Somers: actively engage (don't read without a pen and paper, explain stuff to yourself as you go) [http://jsomers.net/blog/kenjitsu](http://jsomers.net/blog/kenjitsu)

To my mind, 'what' trumps 'how'. A casual reading of 'Mrs. Dalloway' brings a
greater reward than n airport non-fictions.

------
good-idea
In school, I would, chapter-by-chapter: \- Underline & make notes in the
margins \- After finishing, write a "précis" of that chapter on an index card
\- Below the précis, go through the chapter again and copy over underlined
passages, notes I had made and questions I had come up with while reading

Then, I'd end up with a stack of index cards for each book, which I'd keep for
reference. I _rarely_ looked back at these notes, but the 'chore' of doing
this for every chapter really helped the complicated stuff sink in.

------
weiweiwei
If I reeeeally like a book (examples include: war and peace, accelerando, 100
years of solitude, neuromancer) I usually read it halfway through, put it down
for a while, sometimes a week, sometimes a month, sometimes a year or more, go
read lighter or non-fix stuff, write and contemplate on the book I'm
ruminating over, then go back and read it from the beginning, all the way
through. I love doing it like this. During the rumination period I often go
back and look up specific passages in the book to accompany my thoughts.

------
breck
I used to read one book per week (on average) for a number of years. Probably
between 5 and 10 of those books per year were ones I had previously read.

I thought I was an outlier, then I met people that do 4 books per week.

80% of the books I read are technical about programming, math, science, etc.
20% are a hodgepodge.

Fiction books I read very slowly, for enjoyment.

My pace has slowed down. Nowadays I read only one _chapter_ per _month_ of
"What to Expect: The First Year" and pray that we make it to the next month
;)...Okay I kid, but my pace is now down to about 1 per month.

------
fak3gear
I'm lucky enough that I've plenty of time to read at work so I don't know...I
just read.

Always physical books, I've got a Kindle at home but it's just picking up
dust. Most of the time I alternate between either a literary classic or some
non-fiction, and then a more light read (more often than not a Michael
Connelly novel).

Each time I start a new book I snap a picture of the cover and I have a Google
Photos album where I compile them all to remember them and to be able to count
how many I've read at the end of the year

------
ljf
I've only done this once or twice for books I've read, but a comment here from
a post many years ago suggested taking an index card per chapter and writing a
series of questions or ideas on one side, and the answers on the other. Then
at the end of the book you can review and see if you remember what you thought
were important points and see if you remember the 'answers'.

I found it really useful, but it took willpower to do this, and I soon fell
out of the habit. Il have to try it again.

------
Elof
I only listen to content for both short and long form. If it’s short form I
archive the content if I don’t plan to return to it and put it in a folder if
I would like to revisit. For books I bookmark, highlight and add comments. For
most reading I listen around 450 words/min, but if it’s reading for pleasure I
slow it down to 325ish. I’m dyslexic and find that I retain content far better
and enjoy reading much more if I listen instead of sight read.

------
elviejo
When I read coding books I don't read, I _work_ through them.

I have 3 windows open side by side: 1 the ebook I'm reading 2 emacs for typing
the examples (typing is mandatory no copy paste) 3 Anki to create flash cards
of what I've learned. Since I don't want to forget the hard to acquire
knowledge I just got.

When I was younger maybe I had time to waste. But now I must make every minute
spent reading count.

~~~
christophergray
I find that I zone out if I put the windows side by side, so no better than
copy paste. Instead I have the emacs frame cover the ebook while I'm typing. I
do a _lot_ of Alt-Tabbing between the ebook and the editor, but the code is
guaranteed to enter my head before it goes out my fingers.

------
chrisyeh
For a while, I was writing up bullet-point summaries of the books I liked
best. Haven't been able to keep it up, but I think it's the best way to really
crystallize the learning.
[http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/w/page/14422658/FrontPage](http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/w/page/14422658/FrontPage)

------
rmetzler
I almost exclusively read programming books and buy paper books for ~200 EUR a
year. I read with a highlighter pen and mark pages with dog ears. The books
look like I really read them and sometimes I have different colors which
doesn't mean anything, it's just that I had a different colored highlighter.

I think I don't read them from end to end. Mostly I read what is interesting
to me.

------
dontbenebby
I get a big stack of books from the library and pick one at night. I try to
avoid anything technical and have been trying to read more fiction. I usually
get way more than I will read to give myself choices - after all, it's free
either way. I have a plain .txt I write down things I might want to check out
in.

So much of my life is planned and optimized, it's nice to be analog for a bit.

------
winrid
I just read a chapter or two a night so that I always make progress and have
time for reading.

As for remembering, you won't remember everything. I think the commentor that
said it's about shaping your mind over time is correct.

It's just like how you want to surround yourself with smart/successful people.
You might not remember everything they say or do but it shapes you.

"iron sharpens iron"

------
yellowapple
On the rare occasion I do sit down and read a book (I usually don't, since I'm
dreadfully slow at it), I've felt the second or third read to have a far more
lasting impression on me than the first; more of what I read actually feels
like it "sticks". This works best when I give myself ample time between reads
(on the scale of months or years).

------
SkyMarshal
Check out speed reading guides. Even if you find they don't help you read
faster, some of the techniques help you feel more engaged:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159985.The_Evelyn_Wood_S...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159985.The_Evelyn_Wood_Seven_Day_Speed_Reading_and_Learning_Program)

------
arthurofbabylon
Here is a guide to reading articles in the modern world:

[https://link.medium.com/30JQJa3KBZ](https://link.medium.com/30JQJa3KBZ)

Synopsis: 1\. Use a reading list 2\. Pay attention to reading environment
(what app/device, lighting, noise-level) 3\. Use a dictionary 4\. Talk about
it 5\. Follow journalists 6\. Increase quality, read less

------
philliphaydon
I can’t read... if I pick up a book I just can’t stay focused and read. If I
read blog posts it’s fine I can consume that and move on. But novels, tech
books, etc. I just cannot focus enough to read. I’ve never figured out how to
solve this.

I feel more hands on. I can fiddle with code for hours and hours and get
consumed. Build furniture. Build a model. But reading. Nope.

------
BrunoBernardino
I’ll only add one tip here because I haven’t seen it mentioned, and it has
helped me read and retain information better. Also read more interesting
things to me.

I use Blinkist as a way to “skim/filter” books I _really_ want to learn more
about.

I also keep notes (sometimes excerpts, sometimes my thoughts, sometimes a mix)
in Bear for each book I read (even from Blinkist).

------
aazaa
I find the most important part about reading a book to be what happens before
I start. Specifically, the process I use to select what to read. We're given a
very small amount of time in life, and reading a meaty book, especially non-
fiction, isn't quick. So I want to make sure I'm getting the most out of the
experience by filtering as many bad books as possible beforehand.

I use my book reader as a kind of reading list. When I get book
recommendations from conversations or HN threads, I'll download the free
sample to read later as soon as possible. This way, I never forget about a
potentially interesting book.

I also actively hunt for book recommendations in threads on HN, which pop up
from time to time. There was a really good one recently, but I've lost the
link. They're easy to search for, though.

Usually, I don't start reading the sample right away because I'm already
reading another book.

After I'm done with a book, I go through my unread samples, pick one, and
begin. If the book hasn't hooked me by the end of the sample, I stop reading.
Sometimes sooner if it's really bad.

The second most important part of reading a book is to discuss it as you're
reading it. This usually takes the form of in-person conversations or online.
I find this helps me retain the material and discover what I've missed.

You'll never retain anything about a book if you don't try to apply it in some
way. This means writing, talking, and doing should all be key parts of
reading. If the book doesn't lend itself to these activities, it's probably
not worth reading.

Also on the subject of retention, I find reading books in a themed series to
be helpful. For example:

Sapiens -> 1491 -> 1493

The first book got me thinking about the relationship between human activity
and megafauna extinctions. The second book showed me that most of my
assumptions about what pre-columbian America was like were almost completely
wrong. The last book taught me to take the long view of globalization.

All of these books changed my mind on topics I thought I understood, which is
another signal I use when selecting a book. If it can't possibly change my
mind, it's not worth reading. Books that don't pass the test typically: (a)
lack a well-developed point of view; or (b) approach the subject from a
direction I'm already familiar with.

------
shishy
I try not to read _as many books as possible_ but instead limit it to 2-3 per
week. I could probably do one a day if I Really wanted to, but I find spacing
it out helps me spend time in between reflecting on the book I just read, what
it means to me, and I generally make note of that somewhere if I really want
to remember it.

~~~
DissidentSci
Is that 2-3 fiction books per week? Where do you find time to read 2-3 books
per week? Do you speed read?

~~~
693471
Speed reading doesn't really exist; it's just skimming. Even the fastest
reader in the world will admit they lose details and don't enjoy it as much.
You might be interested in checking this video out.

[https://vimeo.com/331908835](https://vimeo.com/331908835)

------
cyanno
I think your question could be better focused. Do you mean "How do others
retain information from non-fiction books they've read?"

I read, mostly on my Kindle, mostly at night before falling asleep. I gladly
re-read books I've enjoyed and usually get a lot more out of it the second go-
around compared to the first.

------
nthnclrk
“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten;
even so, they have made me.”

\- Ralph Waldo Emerson

------
ulisesrmzroche
You shouldn’t read too many books. Just read the good ones (that’s up to you)
a lot

People walk around with encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars. Why? Reps for
Jesus!

Other than that, all the best books I’ve read (as in over and over) have been
by accident. I just had a feeling about the book. Nothing good ever came my
way via recommendation

------
DanBC
Fiction: I use small post-its to mark when a new character is introduced.

Non-Fiction: I hop around in the book first, then I read it through from
beginning to end making notes in my book of stuff. These notes may link to
other books. I also use post-its to mark bits I find most intersting or
useful.

------
punnerud
I read books to find out; what I don’t know, that I don’t know.

When I find these new things I use that a stepping stone for further
investigation. After a while I totally switch area for a while.

It’s all about connecting the dots, and having a good time while doing it. For
me this is also the way I remember it.

------
djsumdog
I read on my phone/tablet these days. I backpacked around for 11 months
straight once and having physical books and keeping notes was difficult. I use
to just buy books from Google/Amazon/B&N, but these days I'll usually just buy
some merch from an author or support their podcast (if they have one) and
pirate the book because I hate vendor lock-in.

I usually try to switch back and fourth between fiction and non-fiction. I'll
read two or three fictional novels and then maybe some non-fiction. I'm not a
huge fan of non-fiction. A lot of them they draw out a 100 page book into a
300 page extended essay because that's what publishers want to sell books at
the current market prices. I'd rather they sell 150 page non-fiction if they
could get the same point across. (Sam Harris brought this up when he self
published the short book: Islam and the Future of Tolerance, which is on my
list).

I think at one time I might have switched between two books throughout my
reading, but today I usually read one all the way through.

I do want to read more. Here's what I finished last year:

Books 2018:

    
    
      Cibola Burn
    
      Nemesis Games
    
      The Dictator's Handbook
    
      The Mythical Man Month
    
      Ready Player One
    
      The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
    

and 2019 so far:

    
    
      The Fountainhead
    
      Wrinkle in Time
    
      The Men who Stare at Goats
    
      The Coddling of the American Mind
    
      Babylon's Ashes
    
      The Strange Death of Europe
    
      Persepolis Rising

------
tyingq
Interested in this. I was a self taught reader at 3-4 years of age, and feel
I'm not as good as those that learned with the benefit of teaching. I read
very fast, like "book in a day", but pretty clearly skimming. Suspect I'm
missing out on key info.

------
smaslennikov
My recent innovation was using a notecard as a bookmark, and writing on it
page numbers and begginning word of excerpts I'll take down to my notebook
later on. This way, it's still portable, I don't dmaage the book, and I'm able
to take notes.

------
roland35
I check out e-books from my library using overdrive and my Kindle. Some months
I read no books, some months I read a few! I find it is good to occasionally
have a wait between books, it keeps me reading at a steady pace so I have time
to think about each book.

------
master_yoda_1
If I read some book to learn then I might read it many times sometime even 10.
After reading I try to connect dots in my head if I am not able to connect I
try to fill the missing link by re-reading it. For normal reading I sometime
skip if it is too obvious.

------
ktaylor
Here is how I read and annotate scientific articles and books:
[http://www.founderscholar.com/how-to-read-doctoral-
student/](http://www.founderscholar.com/how-to-read-doctoral-student/)

------
DoreenMichele
Part of what you are asking is "How do you study in earnest?"

 _Head First_ books have a lot of good practical tips for how to learn new
material, such as "read in bed just before sleeping." I did that a lot in high
school and college.

------
alg_fun
If there are no graphs or formulas in the book, I prefer to use a text-to-
speech engine. Over the years I've become able to listen to it on great
speeds. It feels easier to comprehend spoken language.

------
grawprog
When I read fiction I used to read like you, one after another, always had to
have a book on the go. I ended up feeling like you did so I haven't really
read a fiction book in a few years now.

------
BeetleB
The retention problem is one that bothered me as well. So much so that at some
point I really cut down my nonfiction reading. I figured if I would retain
only 10% or less 6 months later, then in reality I'm reading for
entertainment, not to enlighten myself.[0] If that's the case, why not just
read fiction?

So I decided to take notes. But then I thought of all the notebooks I filled
in school (and still have some), and never looked at after the semester was
over. Notes in a notebook are not much better.

So I made a blog, and for every book I read, I make blog posts with the
highlights. The idea is that it will be on the Internet, and I can review them
whenever and wherever I want to. I did this for a while, but noticed I never
went back to review my notes. Still, I considered this an improvement.

Taking serious notes, BTW, slowed down my reading probably 3-5x.

Along the way I realized I can't always be near a computer while reading. So I
started taking notes in a notebook and transcribing later. Fountain pens for
the win!

Anyway, since I still wasn't reviewing my notes often, I decided to take it
one step further. I used org-drill[1] to make flashcards of things I would
like to retain. I started using flashcard software for other reasons in
November, and I can say it's been wildly successful when it comes to
retention. I've not done it for much of my nonfiction reading, as life has
been busy and I've not read much. But I do plan to make flashcards. I still
make more refined notes and put them in my blog, though.

Making flashcards is not a significant effort. Mostly it's copy pasting
material from my usual notes blog.

Now this all may seem overkill, and perhaps literally killing the joy of
reading books. But as I said, if I'm not remembering 80-90% of a book I
enjoyed, then the only reason I'm reading it is entertainment. And fiction
provides for better entertainment.

[0] Here's an extreme example: In 2014, I was reading Willpower. It was
amazing. I recall several times saying to myself "Wow!". After reading it, I
decided to reread Thinking, Fast and Slow and take notes. I had read it less
than a year prior, but had not taken notes. Still, I did feel I hadn't
forgotten much. What did I find out? Over half of my "Wow!" moments for
Willpower were in Thinking, Fast and Slow. So not only had I forgotten so much
within a year, _I did not even recognize it when reading it again!_

(Let's ignore the question of whether most of Willpower is junk science).

[1] Most people use Anki if you don't want to use Emacs. Org drill has the
benefit that I type up my notes in Org Mode anyway.

------
fractalf
If it's a good book I resd it as fast as I can, enjoying every moment of it. 6
years later I forgot everything and get to read it again. Twice the fun and
bang for the buck! :)

------
natal590
1 to 3 books a week depending on their size. Last year went through about 80
of them.

Because of the vast amount of info after reading I create a summary diary so
as to absorb the info a bit better.

------
satyajeet23
This is a pretty good advice
[[https://fs.blog/reading/](https://fs.blog/reading/)]

------
jvm___
"I dont remember every meal I've eaten or every book I've read but they're
part of me either way" \- I think e.b. white

------
legohead
purely Audio Books in the car. I have a wishlist on Audible and some bookmarks
for other books that aren't on audible that I have to find elsewhere.

I've had enough recommendations on HN and IRL to fill up my wishlist for some
time. Beyond that, I usually go to a "top 100" fantasy/scifi list. After I've
had enough fiction I'll throw in some learning material.

------
venmul
[https://fs.blog/reading/](https://fs.blog/reading/)

------
schlagetown
Love this question. Something I've thought a lot about! My personal reading
strategy has a few interrelated parts:

 _Building an antilibrary_

What books should be “on my list”? A while back I started out with making an
Amazon wish list and adding any books I found that looked interesting. That
soon got overwhelming so I made a smaller, more selective list for my top
“antilibrary” picks. Eventually I decided to make a whole website to try to
organize this better
([https://www.antilibrari.es/](https://www.antilibrari.es/)).

I think it’s probably worth keeping either a couple lists (by genre, priority,
whatever makes sense to you) or at least one high priority list of the books
you most want to read. For me it can be helpful to differentiate between
“looks super interesting” and “I actually really want to read this soon” —
often different! Some books I think are awesome and want to have in my
antilibrary but I know realistically I probably won’t read em soon. That’s
okay!

 _What to read next?_

I think it can be a good idea to revisit your list(s) every so often and let
the ones you’re most drawn to bubble to the top. No need to actually buy more
than a few at a time, but you’ll always have something to draw from. I should
also note, honestly lots of the books I buy aren’t ones I’ve had on a list for
a long time, but rather ones I found at a bookstore and picked up in the
moment…serendipity is always great too!

Same goes for actually choosing what to read next…I don’t plan this out ahead
of time, it’s always slightly random based on what I have on hand, what mood
I’m in, etc. I think it’s useful to own enough books that you always have a
variety to choose from, but past a certain point a great antilibrary list can
be almost as valuable as your actual bookshelves.

 _How to read what and when_

I like to read several books in parallel. Often with fiction I’ll read one
book straight through, but nonfiction…I have like two dozen books in my
nightstand that I’ve started, some way through, haven’t necessarily read for a
while, but meaning to return to at some point.

I’m not particularly good at the “when to stop reading” part. I have
completionist tendencies and always want to at least try to finish a book. So
perhaps the “parallel processing” approach is also just an easier way to
abandon books without feeling bad about it. Either way I think haphazardly
reading lots at once is great. @edouard wrote a cool post that’s on point
here, discussing “reading networks” and how books can inform one another and
let you build interesting connections between them.

 _Different modes / approaches to reading_

Also worth thinking about different ways of reading a book…not just the
approach to choosing books but the actual practice, because it can be
surprisingly varied.

I think in some ways it’s easier to evaluate non-fiction books (vs. fiction,
poetry etc.) because they tend to have more structure. Often I can read a
couple pages of the introduction, scan the chapter list, and flip through the
book (physically or digitally if I’m able e.g. on Amazon) to get a decent
overall impression.

I try to read a good number of reviews, on Amazon + Goodreads when available,
otherwise see what Google turns up. Of course have to take everything with a
grain of salt but it’s usually helpful to see the range of perspectives. Often
I think a book with a good number of extremely enthusiastic reviews but some
that hate it will be a better pick than one with consistent blandly positive
reviews.

\---

To plug my own site - I started a small forum for talking books, libraries,
and reading, and a few discussions come to mind that are very on topic here
(and that I've drawn from in my above post):

\- Developing a reading strategy:
[https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/developing-a-reading-
stra...](https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/developing-a-reading-strategy/87)

\- Reading non-fiction: [https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/reading-non-
fiction/93](https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/reading-non-fiction/93)

\- Personal library organization:
[https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/personal-library-
organiza...](https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/personal-library-
organization/24)

\- Developing a “non-reading” practice:
[https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/developing-a-non-
reading-...](https://athenaeum.antilibrari.es/t/developing-a-non-reading-
practice/30)

------
rammy1234
if that is technical read, probably notes alongside is how I do. If a non-
fiction or fiction, slow read and savor what you read is something.

------
turingbook
First, choose the topic really matters to you.

Then find one good book in this field and read it carefully while doing
practices.

Find other books in this field to broaden your thinking.

------
enkiv2
I have a sort of loose collection of books I'm 'in the middle of' or 'planning
to read' at any given time. Generally, I'll pick up a book that I've started
that I'm in the mood for, but if something I haven't started is more exciting,
then I'll start it.

Stuff that's not engaging me stays in the pile, and anything I've started but
haven't picked up in a few months migrates back to the shelf. Sometimes this
is because it's a bad book & not actually worth reading, but more often, it's
because the place I'm at in my life is getting in the way of enjoying it (for
instance, it's too dense right now because work stress is eating up all my
cycles & I need to stick to something breezy, or it engages with topics that
hit too close to home right now & I'm too emotionally drained to deal with it
at the moment, or I really need to read a different book first in order to
make sense of it).

Ebooks work the same way for me, but I read them under different
circumstances. The ebooks I have on my phone get read during breaks at work or
during mandatory social events -- situations where I don't have reliable
internet or access to my bookshelf but also am liable to be quite bored. The
ebooks I have on my computer at home get read when I'm sitting at my computer
but would rather read them than twitter or something (which is unusual, but
this still happens whenever I do a periodic social media fast, which I have to
do every few months for a week or two for the sake of my sanity).

I've always had a pretty good memory for things I read so long as they're
nonfiction, and while I can't remember fiction narratives to save my life, I
don't think that's the purpose of fiction. (I can recite the first five or six
pages of Neuromancer, having read it hundreds of times in high school, but I
can barely tell you a plot synopsis because my brain just doesn't work that
way: narratives are an alien thing, and they wash out of my memory like rain
off a duck's back.) This means that I can generally pick up a nonfiction book
after not touching it for five or ten years & have no problem continuing it,
but that I have to read fiction in one sitting if the plot matters at all to
the enjoyment. (This basically means that I only end up finishing works of
fiction that are enjoyable for their stylistic qualities -- novelists who are
secretly poets or humorists, like Gibson, Stephenson, Dellio, Eco, or Wilson.
I have read a lot of PKD, but it's always a struggle.)

One reason I might remember nonfiction so well is that, by habit, when I read
I'm constantly summarizing & rephrasing in my head. This slows me down a lot
when I start shouting at the author in my head instead! But, it means that I
have at least connected what the author's saying to other things I know &
integrated it into some kind of ontology.

------
sarcasmOrTears
When I want to understand something I don't read a book, I read multiple books
about a topic. I did this and got quite informed about many useless topics
(energy industry, austrian economics, history of science). Instead if I jump
topics from one book to the next, I lose basically everything. Also if you re-
read books after some time, you get new insights.

As for programming (probably for anything you treat as a profession), I've
noticed that you cannot beat practice, but if the topic is new to you, it's
better to read the whole book first. It's much faster because you see what to
expect and don't waste time when you practice on stuff that is easy and not as
powerful as something else. Also you don't waste comfiguring tools only to
discover that the tech doesn't really interest you anyway.

