How I Consume Books

Books are one of the important sources of my knowledge. They help me become a better version of myself. Over the years the way I consume the books has changed a lot. A book is a gateway to knowledge. My aim is to acquire that knowledge, and hopefully use it in my life. That’s how books help me. Acquiring knowledge from a book is a long process. It doesn’t end when you finish reading it.

Fiction

Most of the fiction books are based on the presentation of a concept or a group of concepts. The concept that presented by the book is the knowledge you’re gaining. This knowledge is small compared to non-fiction. Rest of the book is for your entertainment. And fiction does a good job of presenting the idea . To absorb the idea, it doesn’t require a thorough reading of the book (sometimes it does). For the same reason, I find audiobooks are a better medium for consuming fiction. By doing so, you also save your time.

The advantage of an audiobook is visualizing the story. You get a better understanding of what’s going on in the story. I like Fantasy and Young Adult stories. Visualizing fantasy story improves the overall experience. For fantasy books, I personally prefer listening to the Graphic Audio format (if it’s available).

Non-Fiction

For me, Audiobook format doesn’t work on non-fiction. I tried listening to audiobooks. At the time everything seemed great. I was listening to all these great ideas and thoughts. Then I realized that I was quickly forgetting all the things I listened to. That’s when I decided to start reading the books again.

A Non-fiction book is a comprehensive study of a concept, except Memoirs. It requires your attention, mind, and concentration at the same time. When I’m reading it, I’m borrowing the mind of the author. And I plan to make the most out of it. Here’s how I do it, I take notes .

Whenever I read something important, I highlight it. Next step is to collect them all in one place. Every weekend I spent some time to move all the highlighted blocks to Notion . Along with it, I write down my own thoughts. At the end of the book, I separate them. Book quotes go to one page, and my own notes go to a different one. I also keep the original note. When I have free time, I like to read these notes. It feels like reading the book all over again. Hopefully you can use a similar approach to reading non-fiction books.