How to Really Read a Book and Profit from Its Knowledge

Whenever I go to any branch of Booksale, or any bookstore for that matter, I couldn’t help but pick up and buy a book or two. I’m an impulsive book buyer. As soon as I get home, I will spend lots of time reading my newly acquired books.

Most of my books are Science Fiction and Fantasy literature. A significant number of them are nonfiction dealing with a very wide range of subjects from Business, Leadership and Management to stuff like Archeology, Jewish History and Writing References. I have a very varied taste in the books I read.

My most recent acquisitions are two books by Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point and Blink. These are powerful books, mind you and I want to get the most out of my reading. So I’ve come up with a number of rules on how to really read a book and profit from the knowledge and wisdom it offers.

Read with full awareness. Reading is a very conscious activity. By devoting your full awareness to the book you’re reading, you can notice even the littlest details that may not seem significant at first. By opening up your mind fully, you can absorb the lessons that the book offers.

Mark the book. If you want to keep your book crisp and looking new, this may not be the right advice for you. But if I read a book, I feel that I making marks and writing notes on the margin of the book helps me index the important parts of the book. If I want to go back to the quotable quotes and main ideas in the book, I can simply look at the marks and highlights I left.

Take notes. I keep a small notebook with me almost all the time. Whenever I come across anything interesting, a snippet of a good dialogue, colorful personalities, and ideas for a poem or a story, I jot them down on my notebook. Taking notes also increases comprehension and the retention of the information from any book. By reading the book, marking on its pages and taking down notes, you are increasing your level of interaction with the reading text, thereby increasing the level of your comprehension and information retention.

Look at some ways to apply the principles mentioned in the book. Reading is one thing, retention another. Still, applying what you learned is an entirely different thing altogether. After taking notes, you better look at possible ways to apply the knowledge you gained. Knowledge gained is worthless if you cannot apply it to at least one area of your life.

React to the book. Agree. Disagree. Comment. Explore ways that the ideas of the work do not work. Don’t just be a sponge absorbing whatever the book has to offer. Chances are, there may be arguments against what the book author proposes. You should also look for related books and compare ideas. You can do this by looking at available book reviews online. It might also be a good idea to check any book written against the arguments of the book you’re reading.

Tell your friends about the book. Blog about it. Publish your reactions. By telling other people about your experience in reading a book, you further maximize your understanding of the wisdom and knowledge from the book. If you tell your friends about it, they are bound to ask questions and clarifications. When they do, you are also forced to look at your understanding of the book.

With these rules in mind, I’m reading the Tipping Point with an entirely new paradigm. I’m not in a hurry to finish reading it. In fact, I’m even listening to Malcolm Gladwell‘s Audiobook of the same book to help me maximize my understanding of the concepts he puts forward.

image credit: ckaroli (from flickr.com)

Tags: blink, book knowledge, book reading, gladwell, gladwell blink, gladwell books, gladwell the tipping point, how to read a book, malcolm gladwell, malcolm gladwell books, reading a book, the tipping point