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
Ask HN: How Do You Read?
181–190 of 258 posts
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#182I 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 interest…
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/The-Art-of-War-Audiobook/B00URXOQ... (familiar voice to you?)
I've also had one of the worst narrations I've ever heard: https://www.amazon.com/Monkey/dp/B0162SWL4G/. I believe it was delisted on audible.com
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#183When 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 muc…
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.
I use this technique to counter distracting thoughts to concentrate on reading, learning, or working. As of now i have 1288 textfiles.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deep reading should be saved for books worth the effort. There's far more written than you'll ever be able to read. The cost of discovery is a large impediment to that. Skimming / scanning (contents, index, bibliography, intro/conclusion chapters) is part of the informational assessment. If the book holds up to that, keep digging into it. If not, set it down, and feel no guilt. I'm reading a lot of material, though I…
I should clarify- I fully agree with your assessment. Sturgeon's law holds true with books as much as anything, and there is plenty that can be tossed aside after only a cursory glance. My point was aimed along the lines that if a book is worth reading once, you will benefit from rereading it at a future date.
On that point I agree entirely.
What's impressed me is how much a book can change ... or was it me ... over time, as I've learned and been exposed to more things and experiences.
Some improve, some are less impressive.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#185You 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
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#186Interesting... 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 guil…
Just find a book that you're actually interested in reading and it will make reading fun. I'm almost never interested in books people recommend me, and my circle almost never reads books I recommend them.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#187Why 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.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#188I 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.
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#189When 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 muc…
sometimes I can nonread a full page but feel like I've read something
such a weird feature
Re: Ask HN: How Do You Read?
#190Interested 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.