I don't think things need to be this complicated. I have a few books that I haven't read, many that I have, and some that are on their way. If a fiction book ho

I don't think things need to be this complicated. I have a few books that I haven't read, many that I have, and some that are on their way. If a fiction book hooks me, I'll probably read it cover-to-cover and move on. If it doesn't, it's probably just not that good, and can go away or be finished when I have nothing more interesting to do. If it's non-fiction and non-reference, I tend to just work my way through them slowly, and go to a coffee shop with only the book to get a chapter done at a time. This is the case with Zen Motorcycle; I like it, but not so much that it needs to be read right now, so I'm slowly getting through it. The God Delusion took me about a year, while The Greatest Show on Earth took me 2 weeks or so, and The Selfish Gene took a few months probably. I retain some of the ideas, and don't expect much more, but if I want to, I'd just take notes. With reference books that I hope to come away with something useful from, I don't even bother anymore unless I'm prepared to act on it with an implementation or something. I read Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja cover-to-cover, and retained a bit, but revisiting it I'd just do the code along with it. Likewise, I read a tiny book on the history of Greenland, and didn't take notes and didn't hope to get more than a high level amount of retained information, because it's not important to anything I do, and that would be an unreasonable expectation. If however I did want to retain the data on how much fish was traded between 1750 and 1850, I'd just write it down and write an essay on it. I think what I've decided is that the value from books is an accumulation of some ideas from all the books you read, and you should just set your expectations accordingly. My bet is that people who listen to audiobooks while working on a treadmill desk are just fooling themselves into thinking they've lived a sufficiently productive life, when really you should really read on your own accord, and go to the gym; getting to the end of a book isn't remotely as important as getting the value you set out to get from the text. TL:DR; "I finished x books this month" is worthless, determine the value a book has before or during your reading of it, and adjust accordingly.