I’ve been doing this thing recently where I’ll make a list of the chapters in the book and every time I finish a chapter I’ll write a small summary and even highlight it a color that feels appropriate if I feel it would help me remember it better. I’ll show you what I mean.
This series had 5 books so after every chapter I tried to summarize it as succinctly as I could.
What I noticed is that this helped me memorize so much more than I usually do about a book. Because I’m always coming back to the list as I progress thru the book, I spend more time looking at how the story is structured, how the pacing has been, and where I think the story might go next.
Plus if I ever in the future forget details, I’m sure looking over this will quickly refresh me.
Do you take any notes? It’s obviously not necessary, but it seems to help.
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No, never. But if you enjoy doing that while you read, then that’s great! I love the idea in theory, but I just personally would never do that, unless maybe it was an assignment for school.
I’d rather read a few extra books in a year, than make notes on all of them while I’m reading. My “to read” list is already longer than I can finish in this life-time. But, if it makes reading more enjoyable for you, by all means continue and don’t worry if anyone else takes notes, too.
I read a lot of gigantic fantasy books. I’ve never done this, but I have definitely considered it. It’s hard to keep track of all the characters and events that happen early in 600+ page books. Not sure if I’d do chapters, but considered maybe journaling or writing down things that happened each day of reading or something like that.
No. I read with enjoyment in mind. It’s not my goal to remember minute details about these books in five years, or even five months.
Not notes, but I bookmark any passage I like. Later I photocopy and cut out the excerpt to paste in a notebook. I scrapbook all my favourite passages.
I’ve never thought of doing this, but I like it. Sometimes I stop reading and absorb just how well written or clever a passage was.
I do, it helps me concentrate when reading. I do write down all details, just a few points that I find interesting or actionable.
I usually don’t but I tried annotating and that was kind of fun! I now just keep a notebook with whatever I’m reading and write down anything that I enjoy, relate to or find curious.
Sometimes I’ll go into detail about what I’ve felt/feel about the passage I copied too!
No, but I write a Goodreads review all the time now so I can look back at my opinion.
I started doing this recently :)
I started out with annotating - but sometimes I don’t know what to annotate - and I found it helped me remember more of the book.
Then I got a journal from a book subscription box, and I figured why not use it 🤷🏻♀️ So I started writing down questions I had, things that didn’t make sense, things of note, etc. And I felt it helped connect me even more to the story 😅
An unfortunate side effect is that I feel like I can’t read without an arsenal of tools now 😅😅😅
I use those little sticky page marker tabs and then go back later (usually while I’m watching TV) and highlight the sections I marked. I do this every 10 markers or so and when I’m done with the book go back and reread the passages I highlighted. I only do this with nonfiction though
Depends on the book and if note taking is helpful or necessary for understanding or digesting the book well.
I highlight sentences and passages
Nope. I read for entertainment these days.
But, if I was at work and/or reading a technical document or reference book, I’d be marking up like crazy.
I use Kindle, and it has a great feature of highlighting text you want. Every time I see a worthy passage I highlight it. Usually it comes to 1-5 passages per book.
I do it a lot with nonfiction books and if I really want to remember the lessons, tips, key information. Usually mindmaps. Especially psychology/psychiatry, and geopolitics/history books (since I’m nowhere near those disciplines in what I do or studied). I also journal regularly so I’ll put in my thoughts on the books I read in there.