
What is the best way to absorb the material from a book? - gnuvince
As I get older, I find that I don't remember the things I read in books (programming books mostly) nearly as well as when I was a teenager.  Do you have any tips or techniques that I could apply to help make the subject matter "stick"?
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eswat
Get the physical copy of a book that you think you will dig into, instead of
the eBook or borrowing it from the library or colleague. Then you’re free to
abuse it by making dogears, highlighting important passages, writing your own
observations in the margins, etc. and really making the book—and the
subject—yours. Yes you can do it with a Kindle, but this is about adding your
flavour to the material and it’s a pain in the ass to make your own notes on
an eBook reader.

Don’t try to read a lot of different books at once (I prefer to read one non-
fiction and one or two fiction books at once). I find it very difficult to
grasp the material if I’m reading several technical books at once and I’m
still a student. If you find yourself switching between several books, you
might have picked the wrong resources to learn from. A good book, even a
technical one, should pull you in and never let go. If you stop midway you’ll
most likely forget much of what you have read when you return.

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gnuvince
> Don’t try to read a lot of different books at once

This really resonates with me as I have often 2-3 books on a particular
subject that I will quickly skim through to find the one that I want to spend
more time studying.

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madhouse
I found that reading good books helps a ton. Dry, purely technical books are
no good to me: I put them down at most halfway through, because I forgot how
it all started.

A good book will keep me amazed from the first page to the last, even if it's
a programming book (FYI, Learn You a Haskell for Great Good is such a book -
wish all of them were of the same quality), and I won't find it hard to
remember what I read a day before. When the author makes the book interesting,
I found that it sticks to me much more easily.

So, find good books, that are a joy to read, and you'll have a much easier
time absorbing their content ;)

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pdenya
In general I'm not sure but for programming specifically it should help to do
the book example and then code your own similar example. Save it in a folder
where you can easily look stuff up if you forget it.

Most IDE's also have a clips feature or something similar that may work well
for code storage.

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keeptrying
Theres actually a book titled "How to read a book?" And its actually got some
good ideas but is a little long winded. Essentially it says that you need to
question the content from different angles - from the authors point of view,
for different types of readers point of view etc.

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runjake
Don't just highlight. Take notes for all the concepts, but instead of writing
the passage down verbatim, paraphrase it and include a page number for
reference later.

Bring up the more interesting concepts in discussions and gather your friends'
thoughts on them.

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tobylane
Get into a good mood, read it in a good environment, sleep, and repeat. If you
want to read it and type in bits, then read it through entirely away from the
computer, then on another day read it through stopping to type bits in to
compile.

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stevetjoa
As you read:

1\. Write notes in a separate, clean notebook.

2\. Ask questions. Write down the questions.

3\. Read fewer books, but read them well.

For me, writing and asking questions significantly enhance reading
comprehension.

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Zolomon
Learn by doing! Get your hands dirty. If the books show an example, put it
into practice! It's the best advice I can give - that's how I learn the best.

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sveenstra
Take a look at www.efaqt.com.

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latch
osmosis

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pdenya
Thought this as soon as I saw the question

