One of the things that helped me was to have an actual dialog with the book. For non-fiction books, this means pushing back against claims that appear to be un

One of the things that helped me was to have an actual dialog with the book. For non-fiction books, this means pushing back against claims that appear to be unsupported. When I read in a paper book I do so with a pen to make notes in it (I don't sell my books, and I obviously don't do this with library books), but ebooks just get marked up in my ebook reader and it's very nice. It's also good when reviewing a book because I can see all of my thoughts and questions and often can answer them by the end of the chapter/section/unit. For fiction books, this ends up being a "what would I do there/what would an ordinary person do?" It's very helpful to try and place yourself in the character's shoes and see how you may have reacted differently or if you agree with the character understanding _why_ you agree with them.