I find it difficult to remember much from a book -- technical and non technical -- I read only once, especially when I haven't used the knowledge or facts. Is that true for everyone?
Depends on the book; the average book I remember very little of. But the books that are great, and that hit me at the right time, I tend to remember more about, but not enough, so I tend to re-read them.
Re: re-reading, for me reading a few books on the same or similar subjects approximates re-reading enough for me to have felt like I've re-read after only having read.
I have read a lot of books but only a few more than once. I probably only remember bits I thought were important from any particular book, but when I read several on the same subject they tend to overlap in certain parts and I find I remember those parts very well.
For me there are two modes with a thin line of difference whilst reading any book.
In one mode, I tend to have a huge affinity towards either the author of the book or the potential content of the book. When I happen to read a book in such a mode, my grasping power works super good and whatever I read on seems to stay in memory for a longer time.
The other mode is when I come across a resource, that looks potentially interesting and I'm scanning it to pick up anything that takes me from zero to one. This is when remembering things takes a little more effort for me.
This happens to me as well. I have noticed, however, that while I can't recall facts very well from books I've read they often do change my perspective on things and that is much longer lasting. For example, reading the book "The Selfish Gene" had a profound effect on how I thought about the world, even though I can't remember much at all of its contents other than it being about how evolution selects at the level of genes.
With more technical books I find it is almost impossible for me to learn anything substantial from them unless I do the exercises, however, the exercises tend to take an enormous amount of time. So what I find myself doing is skimming most technical books and then then going more in depth on the few that seem relevant/interesting to me.
I am a mildly dyslexic. I have excellent reading comprehension, but I read about a standard deviation slower than the average reader.
Thus, I don't think I've ever read a book "only once," since in order to understand much of anything, I always end up reading each page paragraph, sentence, or word until I understand it before I progress.
I find myself doing this too. When I usually read stuff, I understand it on the first read almost every time but when I'm reading something that I need to grasp completely like a book or article, I reread the same lines, even in easily comprehensible novels.
slightly ot, but pg just recently wrote an essay about the issue:
> Reading and experience train your model of the world. And even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world persists. Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. It works, but you don't know why.
Fascinated by that context which leads me to remember what a wise man once taught me (at a church I used to go to).
He said, "I can't always remember what my wife cooked for me last night, neither can I last week, or even many of the meals she's lovingly prepared for me over the last 10 years. However without them, I wouldn't be here today"
Bringing it back to topic, I forget very easily but read quite often. When I do read, I find it often helps if what I'm reading is of interest to me or at least inspiring in some way.
A book shapes the mind and allows us to ask more questions, pushes creativity new directions. Very rarely does one want to just download a book into the brain. We want to synthesize it, as you say, eat it as food.
That entirely depends on the book (but not the subject matter). There's some books that i read once and am constantly recalling things from, there's other books that i can read a couple times, feel like i'm understanding or enjoying it while reading it, and then a couple weeks later i can't remember it at all. This holds true for me across technical, non-technical, and fiction.
Granted, that one may have to read it again to remember the finer details, but rarely is a technical book written with the aim engaging the reader in as many ways as possible.
This is why telling a story is so important. People remember stories.
Depends on the book, for most of the Science Fiction I read I can recall them entirely and so re-reading them is not nearly as fun as the initial reading. My Engineering Calculus book from college? Not so much. Although I still remember all of the examples from my differential equations textbook. I have hypothesized in that this is because I tend to reason by analogy and those examples were examples by analogy so they found fertile ground to land in my head. Bulk facts? Don't remember. Stories? Almost always remember. And oddly enough when reading scientific papers I'll often recall the story of what the investigators were trying find out or how they got there, before I can narrow it down to the actual result.
As a kid I figured that this was why peoples who didn't have writing passed on knowledge in stories (easier to remember). But I've never found any support of that theory one way or the other (at least that I can recall!)
Not nearly enough and that's why I have decided to actually re-read the books that I find great; after a certain amount of time though so I can do it with a (more) "clear" mind.
It really depends on the book for me. Technical topics I already know pretty well, I find easy to commit new methods to memory when I come across them. Nontechnical, I can remember a good deal of fiction, but factual things fall off pretty quickly.
I think the most important thing is chunking[1]. You remember key things, such as storylines or plots from fiction, or, with technical writing, where to return if you find yourself needing a particular concept in practice.
This happens to me as well. Here is my experience and interpretation.
Before I turned ~20 years old, I was able to remember almost everything from a book, except exact numbers and foreign names. Along with getting older, I could remember less and less. However, I feel a good book has greater and greater influences on me. It makes me think more, gives me more perspective, makes me realize more how little I know and understand. I paused more often to think what I just read, instead of just browsing through the book.
This also applies to technical books. Take books on programming languages as example. When i was young, I could remember most of its syntax after finishing a book on a new language, and I could jump into writing a program using the language that could actually be compiled and run. Now, I cannot remember much about syntax, but I feel I understand more about the new language, in term of its design, internals, pros and cons, etc. When I am ready to get hands dirty, I have to keep checking manuals for syntax.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way about technical books. I feel like for me now its much more of a challenge for me to remember how to put my designs into a language the compiler/runtime for a language understands than most any other part.
I am actually developing an iPhone right now with the intentions of solving this problem. Email me and I can tell you what I am building - maybe you have some ideas for features that might help: joseph.misiti@gmail.com
One book? Not much. Effective storytelling helps a lot, but only for fiction.
The trick is to read many interrelated books. Same topic, different words. Those variations on a theme let you quickly uncover the core message behind authors' styles. The repetition, with slightly different editorial choices, drills into your mind. Variations on a theme are what makes play so effective as well.
Take notes in a fixed ritualistic manner. Choose the ONE notebook you'll use; Write down the most important passages by hand in a slow, precise way. Most importantly, write a summary of the whole book and FIND CONNECTIONS between concepts from different books.
I have no scientific paper to show you. I read +-50 books every year and this is only my personal experience.
It depends on the book and whether or not I was impacted by it.
Just reading means I will recall something about the book, it's coverage domains, and maybe some higher level details.
If I work with material in the book, even once, what I remember is significantly improved.
Impact can be from that, working with material, or it can come from relevance to things I'm focused on. Sometimes, I read a book, and some parts of it end up being very relevant and I think about it and make connections.
Your brain has a policy of use it or lose it. If what you are reading is relevant to what you are doing, you would remember it otherwise finer details would mostly evaporate rather quickly. This is not just about books but for other things in life too, for example, your past travels or people you meet day to day. Some people are fortunate to have photographic memory way in to their 30s but that's rare.
For most things in life, I would suggest using this philosophy: You don't want to or need to remember everything, rather you want to figure out what insight you attained from something. For example, after reading a book, writing down the summery, your opinions and insights at that point would help you more than remembering every detail. Some people use margin of the book or highlight passages that they find useful and that's good technique that really works. Similarly for your travels, instead of writing down every tiny details if you just maintain logs of surprises and insights you attained each day would be great way to remember it. Lot of people just go through one book after another and that's actually significant waste of time as you are not taking time to digest and reflect on the effort you put in to go through the thing. Writing things down jogs your memory, forces you to ask questions and brings up the critical insights that you are otherwise just passing by. In essence, 3 things helps you the most: write, write and write :).
> If what you are reading is relevant to what you are doing
Or relevant to what you are thinking. I think you really start to pick up knowledge about history, for instance, when you start connecting things you are reading with what you already know.
>For example, after reading a book, writing down the summery, your opinions and insights at that point would help you more than remembering every detail.
I usually type up notes "on the cloud", what's your opinion on writing up notes v.s. typing the notes?
See my response below regarding note cards. As an alternative, a twice-folded sheet of letter size paper may be more available and gives you much more space. I lay the card down either beside the page I am reading or on the back cover (you can affix with tape if this makes it easier) depending on the size of the book.
I type my notes in "the cloud" too. Typed notes vs written notes, there is pretty much no contest. Searchability, longevity, mobility etc points are too strong to ignore. Most books/papers I read are in fact in pdf form these days. I use GoodReader on iPad to do annotations as I read and that stays with my PDF. The one thing I have yet to figure out is how do I do that with audio books. My commute allows me to read 1 audiobook each week but because of lack of annotations and systematic reflection, it's super hard to get true value out of them.
I used to be able to remember most of what I read verbatim without any effort. These days, the harder I try to filter and remember selectively, the worse my memory gets. What started as a mild compulsion has since become very useful– taking brief notes as I go on a blank 4x6 notecard. I have stacks and stacks of them, and every book I start gets a fresh one. Annotating books in the margins can help you get into it more, but it makes going back much harder (might as well re-read the book) and pains anyone who likes to keep their pages scrupulously clean. My "system" is not very strict but mostly follows these ideas:
- Every note begins with a page number unless the same as the previous note
- Notes are separated by a /
- Underline names/places/any *thing* to look up later
- Mark very important notes with a star or border
- Copying chapter titles sometimes helps
- Copy quotes, quick references (to other works), typos
(not really necessary, but "Statute of Liberty"...), or
thoughts & tangents. Typically I just write down a few
words here and there and then write about them
elsewhere (on the computer or in my notebook)
- At the very end, include a brief summary of what I felt
like or knew about before reading, while reading, and
after reading. I only find this useful for bios,
letters, theses, and that sort of thing.
I can: re-read my notes and it will come back, skim notes to narrow down a page range for a detail that I'm looking for, scan the notecards for reference anywhere, keep my notes for library books, etc. That being said, I don't really recommend it to people. If you write slowly, large, or don't like keeping a pen/pencil on hand then it can be annoying.
Aside: I've considered automatically putting these notes into Anki after OCR (the one shown is a messy example, it seems to work though) but I think that's touching a matter apart from the top poster's intention. Rote memorization is useful, but the simple act of writing stuff down by hand has its own benefits without requiring much involvement.
Another thing to point out is that what you read is just as important. The reason I care about extracting references to other works, even if I can't read them immediately, is because it cements a topic in your mind rather than just being another cloud of words and hazy memories. Today I read Species of Spaces (Georges Perec) and on one page he references Forbidden Planet because of the large triangular doors. I made a note of it since I don't actually know what he's talking about (born in the '90s, didn't have TV, didn't see Forbidden Planet, don't blame me). Mentioning it here might actually be enough to make it stick, but I still intend to either read up on the film or, if I have the time, watch it (but not just for that scene!).
49 comments
[ 72.0 ms ] story [ 1257 ms ] threadRe-reading books is underrated.
In one mode, I tend to have a huge affinity towards either the author of the book or the potential content of the book. When I happen to read a book in such a mode, my grasping power works super good and whatever I read on seems to stay in memory for a longer time.
The other mode is when I come across a resource, that looks potentially interesting and I'm scanning it to pick up anything that takes me from zero to one. This is when remembering things takes a little more effort for me.
With more technical books I find it is almost impossible for me to learn anything substantial from them unless I do the exercises, however, the exercises tend to take an enormous amount of time. So what I find myself doing is skimming most technical books and then then going more in depth on the few that seem relevant/interesting to me.
Whenever I re-read a book I look at it in a different light or, better yet, I have a new understanding of the book.
I have an ereader which I take to bed at night and I love reading until I pass out!
It takes me a few nights to finish a book and most of the time the next morning I practice.
Most of the books are about programming which is a topic that I'm literally in love with!
Thus, I don't think I've ever read a book "only once," since in order to understand much of anything, I always end up reading each page paragraph, sentence, or word until I understand it before I progress.
> Reading and experience train your model of the world. And even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world persists. Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. It works, but you don't know why.
http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html
He said, "I can't always remember what my wife cooked for me last night, neither can I last week, or even many of the meals she's lovingly prepared for me over the last 10 years. However without them, I wouldn't be here today"
Bringing it back to topic, I forget very easily but read quite often. When I do read, I find it often helps if what I'm reading is of interest to me or at least inspiring in some way.
Writing memorably is a skill.
Granted, that one may have to read it again to remember the finer details, but rarely is a technical book written with the aim engaging the reader in as many ways as possible.
This is why telling a story is so important. People remember stories.
As a kid I figured that this was why peoples who didn't have writing passed on knowledge in stories (easier to remember). But I've never found any support of that theory one way or the other (at least that I can recall!)
I think the most important thing is chunking[1]. You remember key things, such as storylines or plots from fiction, or, with technical writing, where to return if you find yourself needing a particular concept in practice.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_%28psychology%29
Before I turned ~20 years old, I was able to remember almost everything from a book, except exact numbers and foreign names. Along with getting older, I could remember less and less. However, I feel a good book has greater and greater influences on me. It makes me think more, gives me more perspective, makes me realize more how little I know and understand. I paused more often to think what I just read, instead of just browsing through the book.
This also applies to technical books. Take books on programming languages as example. When i was young, I could remember most of its syntax after finishing a book on a new language, and I could jump into writing a program using the language that could actually be compiled and run. Now, I cannot remember much about syntax, but I feel I understand more about the new language, in term of its design, internals, pros and cons, etc. When I am ready to get hands dirty, I have to keep checking manuals for syntax.
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7514/what-is-the...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book
The trick is to read many interrelated books. Same topic, different words. Those variations on a theme let you quickly uncover the core message behind authors' styles. The repetition, with slightly different editorial choices, drills into your mind. Variations on a theme are what makes play so effective as well.
Take notes in a fixed ritualistic manner. Choose the ONE notebook you'll use; Write down the most important passages by hand in a slow, precise way. Most importantly, write a summary of the whole book and FIND CONNECTIONS between concepts from different books.
I have no scientific paper to show you. I read +-50 books every year and this is only my personal experience.
~ Maya Angelou
Just reading means I will recall something about the book, it's coverage domains, and maybe some higher level details.
If I work with material in the book, even once, what I remember is significantly improved.
Impact can be from that, working with material, or it can come from relevance to things I'm focused on. Sometimes, I read a book, and some parts of it end up being very relevant and I think about it and make connections.
I recall a lot of this, and do so in detail.
For most things in life, I would suggest using this philosophy: You don't want to or need to remember everything, rather you want to figure out what insight you attained from something. For example, after reading a book, writing down the summery, your opinions and insights at that point would help you more than remembering every detail. Some people use margin of the book or highlight passages that they find useful and that's good technique that really works. Similarly for your travels, instead of writing down every tiny details if you just maintain logs of surprises and insights you attained each day would be great way to remember it. Lot of people just go through one book after another and that's actually significant waste of time as you are not taking time to digest and reflect on the effort you put in to go through the thing. Writing things down jogs your memory, forces you to ask questions and brings up the critical insights that you are otherwise just passing by. In essence, 3 things helps you the most: write, write and write :).
Or relevant to what you are thinking. I think you really start to pick up knowledge about history, for instance, when you start connecting things you are reading with what you already know.
I usually type up notes "on the cloud", what's your opinion on writing up notes v.s. typing the notes?
You should be able to remember the basic story in a piece of fiction though.
Aside: I've considered automatically putting these notes into Anki after OCR (the one shown is a messy example, it seems to work though) but I think that's touching a matter apart from the top poster's intention. Rote memorization is useful, but the simple act of writing stuff down by hand has its own benefits without requiring much involvement.
Another thing to point out is that what you read is just as important. The reason I care about extracting references to other works, even if I can't read them immediately, is because it cements a topic in your mind rather than just being another cloud of words and hazy memories. Today I read Species of Spaces (Georges Perec) and on one page he references Forbidden Planet because of the large triangular doors. I made a note of it since I don't actually know what he's talking about (born in the '90s, didn't have TV, didn't see Forbidden Planet, don't blame me). Mentioning it here might actually be enough to make it stick, but I still intend to either read up on the film or, if I have the time, watch it (but not just for that scene!).
Example: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28629850/Condit%2C%20Car... (side 1 of 2)