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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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
"I don’t read a lot" this might be the "problem". Likely because of bad digital reading habits I completely lost the ability to focus while reading for pleasure.
Last year, I needed a few weeks (if not months) of a daily grind until I recovered the ability to read for prolonged periods of time without getting distracted.
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/...) 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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