I have a habit of making notes as I read. I've filled out a few notebooks over the years. It's a great way to retain noteworthy quotes, passages, paragraphs etc. And it provides for good reference material. It's admittedly time consuming and can break your immersion in a particularly absorbing work of fiction. I'm curious to know how others in this community retain excerpts.
Sometimes I take photographs of pages and use Google lens to copy them to a Google doc.
by SkeletonLordDimy
23 Comments
Write a book report.
I live by the creed: If it were memorable, I would remember it.
I only retain broad sketches of the stories. Which is great because it makes consuming my favorite works enjoyable multiple times .
I just read. Unless it’s a non-fiction book that I specifically want to come back to, I don’t care about how much I retain, it’s about the reading experience.
Not related but I had a cousin who used to draw and take a lot of notes INSIDE the books and it was just horrible
I just read. I only ever take notes if it‘s non-fiction and/or work related.
I forget about it and then it’s a special treat when I reread the book
I don’t. I won’t retain everything and taking notes feels like homework. Sometimes I look up the meaning of a word but aside from that I just read.
If I retain it, I retain it. I don’t worry about it.
I write pretty detailed reviews on Goodreads, which helps jog my memory if I ever forget things about the book itself or how I felt about the book. I also highlight examples of solid prose and passages that I find interesting, significant, humorous, etc. that I then include in those reviews. I unfortunately tend to forget a lot of stuff even about books I really liked, so I have to write about them in some way to retain anything.
I take notes as well! It doesn’t break my concentration to do so, because if I read a passage that is worthy of my notes, then I probably want to linger over it for a minute or two anyway. I read a lot of series so I’ve found that notes are also helpful for remembering what happens from book to book, especially since I don’t binge series. There are usually gaps for me between books.
Emotions.
I feel like this would just kill my enjoyment, if something is memorable I tend to remember it
I do a book journal. I write down what I thought of the book, a synopsis, and if I’d recommend it – why or why not.
I’m in a book club so I’ll type some stuff in my Notes app, like main character names, big events that happened, and then any questions or themes I want to remember to discuss. Mostly I do it because we constantly reschedule to accommodate everyone and we all forget what we’ve read by the time we meet, lol.
Reading is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. In my opinion, taking notes while reading sounds like school work, not fun.
I put a post-it or two inside the front cover, and make notes about pages that I want to refer to again.
I used to underline and highlight in my books, It was a habit I got into in high school and college, but I don’t like having scribbles and highlights in my books, so I stopped.
Taking notes is a good idea for nonfiction books. Also for fiction, if there is a particular passage or quote that you know you’d like to remember. Just the art of taking notes can help you retain something, even if you never refer to the notes.
I think if it’s important enough for me to want to reference it I’ll actually try to remember it, re read it, stop in my tracks, underline it, take a picture, dog ear the page – but this is all stuff i just naturally do going about reading, i tend to remember stuff more when i re read it and also i just hope for the best that id remember or its not that important.
but it also doesn’t take me long to finish a book so i only take notes in my notes app (much quicker than writing down, doesn’t take me out of the story) so that i know what im talking about when i review it and it’s fun to read back on if the book becomes a favourite
I read with a pencil. I underline what I find noteworthy and keep reading.
After finishing reading the book I go back to read what I underlined.
If it’s something I’m reading for leisure, I see it like hanging out with some friends or talking with strangers. You won’t always remember everything that was said, but you’ll remember how it made you feel
Vibes. Reading is an experience, not a chore. I enjoy it in the moment, and when I’m not enjoying it, I’ll stop and move on or put it away. If I am focused on taking notes and/or retaining everything, it would kill the enjoyment. Let me have the escaping of riding dragons or going on adventures without making it homework
If I remember it, I remember it.
Sometimes it will be a specific scene, and sometimes it will be the general beats of “so this girl -“
Both are enough for me.
I mean…. there’s no quiz after. If you forget something important in a book you like, you get the joy of rediscovering it on re-read.
Mostly I just retain a few central plot points/ideas naturally, and if I have strong positive feelings about the book or series I’ll probably reread it later. In that case, forgetting is a feature, not a bug.