How I Read Books

I think many people misunderstand how to use books generally. They're such simple things. Many people think you have to read every page of a book starting at the first page and go to the last page, before moving on to the next. Maybe because that's what they were taught in school?

How I read:

- as many books as I want concurrently (from 0 to infinity)

- sometimes I skip entire chapters to get to the bits I find important

- sometimes I read parts of a book and decide it's a bad book, or not useful to me, so I put it aside

- sometimes I read the same paragraphs/pages/chapters/books multiple times, rarely, but occasionally, many, many times (e.g. some essays I read approximately every 3 months, since they're so important to keep front of mind).

- very often, I take notes, often many pages of notes. These are an amazing resource for years to come

12 points | by nomilk 1 day ago

11 comments

  • jjice 13 hours ago
    Skipping parts in books was a big mental shift for me that has made me a much happier reader. I used to force myself to read through parts of books I already knew. If you read technical books, the overlap between them continues to grow and sometimes I really only want like half a book. Sometimes the additional perspective on a familiar concept is valuable, but I don't force myself to spend time on them anymore.
  • jimekus 1 day ago
    I also listen, as I've done for 40 years since my first SpeechThing. Now I have end-to-end harmonic mixing thrown in. I automate Firefox scraping of daily articles, but for longer books, I read as much as I want and when the session closes the remainder is queued up at the rear, so I get back into those queued books in the quiet weekends when then articles are exhausted. I listen from very early morning until midday.
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    • Slow_Hand 1 day ago
      I'm not familiar with the tech; what is harmonic mixing for audio book readouts? Would you please elaborate?
  • xcubic 9 hours ago
    How do you know what chapters to read or skip? Just by the title?
  • Jeremy1026 15 hours ago
    > Many people think you have to read every page of a book starting at the first page and go to the last page, before moving on to the next. Maybe because that's what they were taught in school?

    I do it because if I don't I get details crossed between them, creating one heck of a cross-over episode.

  • GreenLightGo 16 hours ago
    I also find listening more interesting than reading. Sometimes I even do it while working, if the job is routine and not too complicated. But technical books and materials have to be actually read, sometimes several times over...
  • fyredge 1 day ago
    It depends on the book. This style of reading is suitable for textbooks and journal articles, but does not work for fiction, where reading order can be quite important.
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    • kooldeep7 1 day ago
      True, you cannot absorb fiction when you're skimming a book.
  • ytoawwhra92 1 day ago
    What you're describing requires a level of literacy possessed by less than 10% of the adult population.
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  • idbnstra 14 hours ago
    which essays do you read every 3 months? open to hearing from more than just the OP too
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  • Preston67 1 day ago
    Thank you, this has been very helpful information
  • Onplana 1 day ago
    I like to listen instead of reading books.
  • rdevilla 1 day ago
    [dead]