OK, so I made a post recently about how to read more, and got loads of useful advice. My NY resolution is to both read more, and specifically to read more non-fiction. I read a fair bit of non-fiction – mainly politics, biographies and history – but the thing that puts me off, and I appreciate this is by no means a unique experience, is that I’m truly *awful* at retention. I read a fascinating book just last year called Zealot about the historical Jesus, and can barely tell you anything from it besides that he hung out in Nazareth a lot. But I really enjoyed the book as I was reading it! It feels pathetic to not be able to retain at least some of it.
The advice I’ve gotten to date seems to be mostly around keeping notes, summarising, etc, but this slows down the reading process, ends up feeling like school/university revision, and generally I just think…surely there must be a different way? In the absence of naturally good memory/an ability to grasp and retain things quickly that many on here seem to have, is there anything I can do to improve this, and not feel totally useless? The book I mentioned above actually came up in a conversation the other day, and I didn’t even say I’d read it as I simply couldn’t remember much about it, so couldn’t participate in the conversation…which sucked!
Thanks in advance.
by Immediate-Leading338