The art of reading non-fiction non-linearly

I like to have two books I'm actively reading at most times, typically one technical-ish book and one nontechnical-ish book. If I need more than two then probably I'm not actually interested enough in one of them and will just stop reading it altogether. I have a lot of books I've read 1% - 50% of and never finished, though coming back to one later isn't totally out of the question, it just goes back from my "reading right now" place to my shelf.

By this standard I am a terribly unsophisticated reader. The majority of the books in my home I did not finish. I used to feel terribly guilty about it. Still do sometimes, but two things helped to ease my unease.

Firstly, I started reading short stories more than novels. A short story can usually be read in one sitting and no-one thinks a collection should be read cover to cover.

Secondly, I realized that most non-fiction is (a) badly written and (b) can be read in a non-linear fashion. Just scan the table of contents and dip into the chapters that catch your attention. Skim first and read closely only if convinced. Use the index for cross referencing. Take notes for extra points.

Oh, and read How To Read A Book, by Mortimer J. Adler.

How To Read A Book was pretty insightful. But I'm finding myself reading less because I need to have notes ready, and reading can't be done casually.

I also have a hard time seeing how it's possible to read Plato 3 times in a week, even without a job.

I disliked the word choices (unsophisticated reader) so much that I couldn't finish the article, ironically I suppose.

If you are going to make a bid for identifying a behavioral pattern or personality type or what have you then try not to use a word that carries too much baggage or would be generally considered the opposite.

I think if you asked people generally what a sophisticated reader was they would probably assume someone who read a lot, was willing to drop books and not finish them because they were not good, and so forth. But in this case he wants to call them unsophisticated readers in what I can only ascribe to knee jerk contrarianism and thinking it would be clever.

I mean really, if I could get everyone to call what was called a sophisticated reader an unsophisticated one think about what that would do for my genius career!

I'm confused why they used "unsophisticated" and "sophisticated" instead of simply linear/non-linear. It's also weird that the author suggests that everyone starts sophisticated and should become unsophisticated.

Good article otherwise. Loved the remark that we shouldn't strive for hitting the yearly quota and instead just enjoy reading.