This was a gamechanger for me. No more eye strain from reading on a monitor.
I will occasionally ask Gemini if I'm confused or need context. Luckily, most models are trained on public domain books!
Edit: I also take notes. Most of the time it's to connect what I'm reading with another book/paper rather than just summarizing.
I now have a 12" Samsung tablet, removed all bloatware, still use ReadEra (you can backup and migrate notes/etc in a new tablet). It's light, has battery for days (if you remove bloatware).
Gutenberg has thousands of books, and you can find more in 'local-themed websites' on specific languages. You can also find plenty of stuff on internet archive.
There are so many!!!/thousands of book in the "classics" and the "ancients" that will give you all the wisdom you need in life and/or the various "redbooks" (thinking of IBM rn).
But it's more common for me to just ask general questions. For example, when confused about a term, I asked "In Thoughts on the Funding System and Its Effects from 1824, what did Piercy Ravenstone mean by a sinking funding system?"
Sometimes, it needs a lot more context to output anything that makes sense.
I love it because there's no eye strain like an ipad (which I have but no longer use for reading). You can charge it once and it will last for weeks without a recharge. The highlights are amazing - you can highlight key points throughout the book (if you have a kindle scribe you can use the pen to highlight which is a nice experience) and then go online and view all your notes in one place - pretty useful like your own cliff notes. Also if you get kindle, you can get a Libby account with your public library and get basically any book for free (pending hold/wait times, but I haven't found this to be an issue). When you checkout a book on the libby app it is automatically sent to your kindle, no hassle. I use a smaller kindle for reading in bed, and the scribe for reading at my desk. You can certainly make do with one though. I love that when it's not in use, you can set it so it shows the cover of the book you're currently reading, nice touch. They're fast/snappy and work well. The back light and dark mode is great for night time reading. I didn't get hype over dark mode, but it really makes sense when you're reading at night in the dark less light coming out on your face. If you use more than one like me, it syncs across devices which is nice.
Lately, I tried reading a book while listening to the audio book at the same time. This was very immersive and I actually finished the book in one sitting, a great way to absorb information and stay focused, while still being able to highlight.
Finally, a lot of people talk about liking having an physical copy of the book as a preference, but I've found the advantages above out weigh it. You can't highlight your physical book and then seem them all in one place and quickly go through them. I sometimes get a physical copy for fiction books, but for non-fiction where I want to highlight and apply info, kindle is my choice. And as a fun thing you can do with your kindle - a lot of people find nice cases and decorate with stickers, so there's still something new/fun if you miss that new book smell ;)
As for explanations, they tend to be contextual. So if someone tells me they have issue with time management, I can briefly explain the gtd method. If someone tells me about some habit they’re trying to follow, I advise to use the atomic habits principles. I also have a few WhatsApp groups spanning my interests, so I can share there too. I keep the explanations short and expand if asked.
It integrates really well with Obsidian, so all of my highlights are directly put into my second brain.
I'd love to find a FOSS alternative though
Kavita is awesome. I host it on my pc and serve it to my iPad/iPhone over a zerotier VPN
I've been downloading some public domain math texts from Project Gutenberg to my Kindle Scribe to read/research.
With that said around 2017 I was living in a tiny apartment in London (then moved to a bigger one). The space was 25-30sqm so.. not much room. I bought a second-hand 40" TV, and used it for both work, play, netflix/hbo, etc. Although I prefer Fortnite on 'smaller' (below 35") screens.
It's on a big-ass desk, about 70-80 cm away from my eyes.