How can I be intentional about books?
I like to read. And I like to learn. And I like checklists. Around my 3rd or 4th year of college I got back into reading for fun. For a while all that meant that I diligently finished every book I started, read exactly one book at a time, and eschewed audiobooks.
Since then I’ve tried to be more intentional about reading. I find that I’m reading more books, enjoying reading more, and yet I don’t feel like I spend too much time reading.
Here is my general approach to reading books right now:
1: Start and put down books freely. I used to basically grind out every book. But then I finally realized the opportunity cost is way too high to finish a bad book. I’m still not great at this but I’m trying to DNF more books (same as other content, because it’s important to Thoughtfully manage your information ecosystem).
2: Read multiple books at once. I used to read just one book at a time. Then I realized that to make progress in that book I had to be in the mood both to read and to read that book. Now I read multiple books at once. This year (2023) I think I had six books going at one point. Usually I’m at three or four. I read more because I just have to be in the mood or intention to read.
3: Use audiobooks for 3- or 4-star nonfiction. I used to not use audiobooks at all. I thought that audiobooks were bad because I wouldn’t retain much. Then I realized I was reading a lot of mediocre nonfiction and retaining almost nothing from those anyway. Audio is a better means to “read” those books because I’m doing something else as well. Between training for marathons and walking the dog I can get through a lot of 1.5x speed audiobooks, as evidenced by the split in 2023 above. And that frees up my intentional reading time for other (hopefully) better and more difficult books. This is especially important because many books are not information dense.
4: Have lots of books around. I have always had a lot of books but now I’m trying to embrace it. We replaced our TV with taller bookshelves. I think having physical books around makes you feel like a reader, and then you’re likely to read more.
5: Use the public library. I used to buy books for kindle often. Now I mostly get digital e-books and audiobooks from the library. Most public libraries offer that, and I’m constantly surprised how many friends don’t know this. Also you can put a Kindle into airplane mode and keep reading after the due date (the license is still returned to the library). One downside here is that the more niche books I want to read are not often available this way, and I’m noticing that’s starting to bias my reading towards more popular books…
6: Take notes. I used to just read and do nothing with a book. Now I try to read more actively — so that I understand more of the book then, so that I take more away from the book, and so that I have more raw material to work with later. On Kindle I highlight passages that I want to save into my notes. I read physical books with a pen in hand and follow similar marking shorthand to how I read for class in college. For a dense book that I really want to understand I write chapter summaries in the margins.
7: Seek out recommendations and have a “to-read” list. I used to just hold in my head the list of books I wanted to read. Now I use Goodreads to save and categorize books I’m interested in. Unfortunately it does give Amazon a lot of information about me… but for ease of having one tool that serves up recommendations from friends and keeps a list for later I’ve kept that tradeoff. See more about Feeds, Saving, and Recommendations at Thoughtfully manage your information ecosystem
See also:
Reading Well - by Simon Sarris - The Map is Mostly Water
You should buy books on a whim, whenever possible, enough that you start to forget about them. You shouldn’t know the whole contents of your own shelves
Books are not Information Dense - by Arnold Kling
I speculate that nonfiction books are headed down the path of academic journals. They will be useful for academics positioning themselves for tenure, but they will be too slow and ponderous for communicating ideas. People who really care about ideas will turn to reading and writing substacks instead of books and journals.