But there was a topic here about a compiler ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14273177 ) where the author wrote a book and some comments there made me wondering how much you ( HN readers ofc) read?
Ps. Subject doesn't matter, but it would be nice if you included it. I'm reading mostly tech, marketing and business books
Subjects? Varies... lots of software stuff obviously, but I also read books on general science, history, business, marketing, biology, electronics, biographies, etc.
If you really want to see what I read, add me on Goodreads:
I personally forget the majority of what I read and only remember a few main ideas. With technical books I take notes in google docs and try to review them later to cement the ideas in my mind.
That's a really good question, and one I ask myself a lot. I honestly don't know, and I've read reference to some studies somewhere or other that suggest that most people retain fairly little of what they read. So my strategy with a lot of books is to read the book, not take notes or anything really, and at the end, make a simple "this is worth revisiting" or "this isn't worth revisiting" decision. If it is, I'll read it again and either do some light pencil underlining or use post-it page flags to highlight important stuff, OR I'll do a full-fledged "create a wiki page for this book on my wiki and take detailed notes" pass.
Sometimes I'll do the "light pencil underlining and post-it notes" thing on the first pass.
It's an interesting trade-off... I don't want to spend too much time taking notes and cut into my time for reading other books. But I don't want to waste the time I spent reading a book and not retain anything from the experience either!
I've recently cut my reading time and I am spending more time recollecting and figuring out how to apply what I read.
You said you don't read a lot but I would 1st suggest that you increase the time needed to understand how to apply what you read rather than just add reading time.
Make a list of what you want to improve, get a book on that and use it.
I don't read tech books in these times. Usually history, biography, and art history. I make another time slot for books like tech books that I ""study"".