I read fiction based on recommendations or liking other works by the author, but more importantly, based on hearing people saying interesting things about the w

I read fiction based on recommendations or liking other works by the author, but more importantly, based on hearing people saying interesting things about the work. A good recent example is this gwern article, that finally convinced me that I must watch Neon Genesis Evangelion: http://www.gwern.net/Wikipedia%20and%20Dark%20Side%20Editing http://www.gwern.net/Wikipedia%20and%20Dark%20Side%20Editing I read nonfiction in a project-learning approach - if I need Partial Differential Equations for a game I'm writing, I'll read an article or book about PDEs. I sometimes read a nonfiction book simply because I love the author or topic (Feynman's Lectures, Hamming's The Art Of Doing Science And Engineering), but it usually doesn't work as well (project-based is awesome because you always have "how can I use this in practice?" in the back of your head, leading you to process the material in interesting ways. Skimming also helps. The most fun I've had studying a book was Steven Smith's DSP book, at http://www.dspguide.com/ http://www.dspguide.com/ (I recommend that you learn how to make music with synthesizers before you start reading.) My online reading diet is more of the fast-food-and-candy type, which is something I really should solve.