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.
Depends on the book and if note taking is helpful or necessary for understanding or digesting the book well.
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.
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.
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.
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!
I do, it helps me concentrate when reading. I do write down all details, just a few points that I find interesting or actionable.
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
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 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.