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.
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 write a book summary after I read a book, because I find I struggle to remember exactly what happens in some books.
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.
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.
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.