When I was a child, I would sometimes wake up in the night with a burning need to go and read a certain line from a book.

The line would be in my mind, word for word, yet I needed to see it on paper. I needed to experience the acute look and feel of it before I could go back to sleep.

That sensation exemplifies the difference between people who enjoy reading and those who do not. Those who do not enjoy it see a book as a one-time thing to either get through out of necessity or for pure fun. Those who do enjoy it understand that a book is a dialogue between the author and the reader. It is a continuous two-way interaction.

As children, we learn the technicalities of how to read. But few (if any) schools teach how to truly benefit from it. We grow up viewing books as something to skim through before a test. Maybe we memorize a few sentences, then forget them straight away. Books become a chore, not an experience.

This is a concept which needs reshaping. Whose idea was it to teach Shakespeare to kids?

Part of enjoying reading is to turn it from a passive to an active skill. This means engaging, remembering and using what you read. To answer some questions, this post is a massive brain dump of my techniques for doing that.

I remember a surprising amount of what I read, even though I get through about 4 books a week. When I use a quote or reference in a piece of writing, I usually have typed it from memory then double-checked the accuracy. Whilst I could not list all the books I have read, name any that I have and I can recall a substantial amount.

Here are some of my thoughts on what makes this possible:

- Subvocalize.

Whilst I do have the ability to stop subvocalizing, I do it when I am reading something complex. Reading aloud, if possible, works well for remembering certain sentences. Sometimes I will listen to the audiobook version after finishing a book to help me remember more.

- Differentiate between facts and concepts.

Concepts tend to be more useful. When I am trying to cement one in my mind, I practice applying it to random things. This is one of the more beneficial things I learned in college. I used to go for walks and ask myself: what is a Marxist reading of sandwiches? A third-wave feminist reading of that car? A post-modern reading of what I am doing now? It was crucial for locking the concepts and perspectives in my mind. Remembering concepts is usually easier than remembering facts.

- The best way to remember something is to teach it.

Upon completing a book, call up a willing participant and tell them about it. If that is not an option, talk to your pets or a rubber duck. This is similar to the Feynman technique, in which you simplify complex topics. Or write about it- Goodreads and Reddit have plenty of places you can do this.

- Read before bed, then review it in the morning.

We tend to unconsciously process what we expose ourselves to before falling asleep and therefore remember more of it.

- For some books, the key is to remember how they make you FEEL.

This is more the case for fiction. It is not always necessary to remember every little detail. Sometimes a general sense is enough.

- Different books require reading in different ways.

Some take me weeks or even months to read in small doses, such as Meditations and Tools of Titans. Others are best suited to a single sitting, such as anything by Jack Kerouac and good fiction in general. As a rule of thumb, books of letters and those split into section are best in a few sittings while relatively short fiction is best in a single sitting.

- Take meticulous notes.

When part of a book stands out to me, I record it in a notebook, then in Evernote. Writing it out twice helps to lock it in my memory. Whilst I like having it in analog form, Evernote is vital for being able to find what I need and draw connections. When I am writing about a topic, I can then search for it and integrate different ideas together. If you would like access to part of my catalog of book notes, this is possible via Patreon. I share links to hundreds of notes with my patrons. The downside is that its very time consuming to do.

- Also, index cards.

I first learned about the system of using index cards to construct a book from Vladimir Nabokov. I have been using this technique for the book I am working on, keeping cards by me as I read and taking notes. Being able to shuffle them around and flip through is extremely valuable. It's also more portable than a stack of notebooks and less intimidating for writing. Here are some I filled recently: