I tend to skip out on "reading for fun"--as us students call it. Reading tends to be reserved for vacations, since it's too hard to fit it in during a semester.
However, I'm currently in a semester, but I have made the time to read religiously for about 5 weeks now. The benefits are huge.
I read mostly nonfiction, mostly which is somehow meant to be useful and applicable (psychology, religion, self-help, etc). But I don't neglect nonfiction whose purpose is to simply entertain and fascinate (science, math, music, history, etc).
Of these nonfiction books, I try, like others in this thread have mentioned, to take notes. I've read a couple "how to read books" books, which have opened me up to how little I actually remember from all the nonfiction books I've read. At first, note-taking was a disaster. It ruined my enjoyment of reading. I just couldn't enjoy a good nonfiction book when I was pressuring myself to make it as learning efficient as possible. So I decided to put down the note-taking for a while and just gobble up books as fast as I could. I really enjoy it more that way. But recently I've ever so slowly began to implement note-taking, taking notes when I feel like it, but still allowing myself to read when I just don't feel like being OCD about learning every little detail.
I have also found that my bias towards nonfiction has been destructive. I have finally re-entered the vivid world of sci-fi and fantasy. I remember in high school, 1000 page fantasy tomes were my bed-time reading. They let my visual imagination run wild, and (I think) as a result I had vivid dreams. Recently I've added sci-fi and fantasy into my reading regime, hoping that it'll stimulate my imagination again.
Other than that, I think the "book a week" method is very good, as it prevents us from going into book droughts. |