4 ms·

One piece of advice I’ve found valuable is to write in books. On successive reference it has surprised me what I had thought first time through, and it doesn’t

by brg 6y ago

One piece of advice I’ve found valuable is to write in books. On successive reference it has surprised me what I had thought first time through, and it doesn’t take me out of the book to make the note. It did take a while to get over the feeling of sacrilege of the book, but it has been useful.

cgriswald 6y ago
Let me first second (heh) your point about writing in books. In addition to it being a useful reference, it also aids me in the following two ways: First, I am far more likely to remember what I have written than what I read. So it's a great device for helping to cement the material in your mind. Second, it helps overcome a sort of inertia I have where if I'm not reading a book, there's a hurdle to picking it back up. If there's a note in the book sort of summarizing where I'm at, it not only removes that hurdle, but I have the subjective feeling that I'm back into it with a running start, rather than having to turn back a few pages to get back up to speed. > It did take a while to get over the feeling of sacrilege of the book, but it has been useful. I believe there's a section in Adler about this, and reading that passage was enough for me. I won't quote or paraphrase, because I'm not sure I'll represent their statements correctly, but I think that's the source of where I'm at with this now. And the change in my perspective was very rapid. My new perspective on this wasn't to see books as less sacred, but to understand that in order to honor that sacredness, I had to consume this book in a deeper, more meaningful way, and form a real relationship with the book in a way that's probably impossible without writing in the book. Not to be too cheesy, but there was also a bit of an "Aha!" moment for me watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. With regard to spoilers, the "half-blood prince" (HBP) had a real relationship with that book. It's positively scribbled in, and it made the book better presumably for HBP, but also for Potter who ends up possessing the book.

by brg 6y ago

cgriswald 6y ago

Let me first second (heh) your point about writing in books. In addition to it being a useful reference, it also aids me in the following two ways: First, I am far more likely to remember what I have written than what I read. So it's a great device for helping to cement the material in your mind. Second, it helps overcome a sort of inertia I have where if I'm not reading a book, there's a hurdle to picking it back up. If there's a note in the book sort of summarizing where I'm at, it not only removes that hurdle, but I have the subjective feeling that I'm back into it with a running start, rather than having to turn back a few pages to get back up to speed. > It did take a while to get over the feeling of sacrilege of the book, but it has been useful. I believe there's a section in Adler about this, and reading that passage was enough for me. I won't quote or paraphrase, because I'm not sure I'll represent their statements correctly, but I think that's the source of where I'm at with this now. And the change in my perspective was very rapid. My new perspective on this wasn't to see books as less sacred, but to understand that in order to honor that sacredness, I had to consume this book in a deeper, more meaningful way, and form a real relationship with the book in a way that's probably impossible without writing in the book. Not to be too cheesy, but there was also a bit of an "Aha!" moment for me watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. With regard to spoilers, the "half-blood prince" (HBP) had a real relationship with that book. It's positively scribbled in, and it made the book better presumably for HBP, but also for Potter who ends up possessing the book.