On Retention
Today I’m looking for some tips and tricks to help me out with my reading retention. Because I’m one of those people who within days of finishing a book will forget nearly everything I read. Scenes, characters. Entire plots. “Did you like the book?” someone will ask me. “I think so,” I’ll say. Well, what was it about? “I don’t know!”
It helps when I take notes inside the book, and flip back through them when I’m done. Of course, some people don’t like to write in their books. I need a new tack.
What are some of your strategies for retention?
Well, when I have the time, I’ll write a review for my blog or on Goodreads, which helps. Most of the time I just keep an MS Word doc tracking everything I’ve read, which at least helps me remember THAT I’ve read them. Interested to hear what others have to say.
Interesting. I like to take notes, either in the book or in a notebook. I will underline passages (in pencil) that strike me as particularly insightful or useful (especially for reviewing purposes). I will also write down character names when they are first introduced, along with a few descriptive words to jog my memory. Increasingly, as I read on my Kindle or iPad, it’s becoming important to take these kinds of notes, because just putting a bookmark on a page doesn’t necessarily help me remember WHY I bookmarked it.
Wow, Leah, you have a Word .doc tracking everything you’ve read? Like… EVER? Or just by year?
Year to year, for the past three years. I kind of compete with myself, too, trying to beat last year’s number. Wish I’d started much earlier! I like your technique. I keep track of quotes, too, and peruse the document from time to time when I want to remember what writing can be.
I started doing the same, Leah, a couple years back. Definitely makes it easier to compile year-end lists. Someone would ask me to write a post about the best books I’d read in 2010, 2011, etc., and I’d have to wrack my brain just to remember *any* titles, much less the best ones. So the running list helps in that way. Still, I can look at the titles of all of those books and still not really remember a goddamn thing about them. Perhaps, rather than just title-author, I should include on that list a few quick lines of plot… Read more »