Just to emphasize jseliger's last point, taking notes, specifically, writing reviews on books has helped me retain what I read more than I could have possibly imagined.
While I'm reading I try to keep myself in a frame of mind of a book reviewer. What will I want my audience to know about this book? What do I agree with or disagree with? What are the highlights? I sometimes take notes while I'm reading, but more often I just try to maintain that mindset.
When I'm done I write a quick 3 to 7 paragraph review and post it on GoodReads. Knowing that my review will be public forces me to take an objective look at my thoughts on the book, are they intelligible, consistent, relevant?
Writing the review also makes my conversation about the book more interesting and confident. And the more I talk about a book, the better I retain the information in it, so it's a double benefit. I've also found that reading the review a couple years later will quickly bring back more of the book than I get by just flipping through the pages or wracking my brain to remember what I read.
Writing a review on a book doesn't take long, maybe 20 minutes per book, it helps my writing skills and helps me read less passively. It's also pretty fun.
And you might also be doing a public service: I suspect that reading book reviews may be a good way to get a solid 20-30% of the benefit from the book's factual content in less than a hundredth of the time it takes to read.
While I'm reading I try to keep myself in a frame of mind of a book reviewer. What will I want my audience to know about this book? What do I agree with or disagree with? What are the highlights? I sometimes take notes while I'm reading, but more often I just try to maintain that mindset.
When I'm done I write a quick 3 to 7 paragraph review and post it on GoodReads. Knowing that my review will be public forces me to take an objective look at my thoughts on the book, are they intelligible, consistent, relevant?
Writing the review also makes my conversation about the book more interesting and confident. And the more I talk about a book, the better I retain the information in it, so it's a double benefit. I've also found that reading the review a couple years later will quickly bring back more of the book than I get by just flipping through the pages or wracking my brain to remember what I read.
Writing a review on a book doesn't take long, maybe 20 minutes per book, it helps my writing skills and helps me read less passively. It's also pretty fun.