digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: To retain what you read, actively engage with books by reviewing and discussing them publicly through book reviews, podcasts, or videos, rather than reading passively and passing through many titles quickly. Speaker Benjamin McEvoy also recommends reading slowly and selectively, combining reading with audio narration, cross-pollinating books with real-world experiences, defacing your books through annotation, and talking about ideas with others.
Key Points
- Record yourself reviewing, summarizing, and analyzing what you read; McEvoy says this produced near-permanent retention for books like Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet and Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.
- Reading with the intent to review publicly makes you a more active reader, prompting marginalia, commonplace books, notes, re-reading, and cross-referencing.
- Read and listen simultaneously, since hearing the text aloud can make difficult books clearer, as McEvoy found with Lincoln in the Bardo.
- Reduce the number of books you read so you can devote deep attention to each one, rather than chasing high monthly counts.
- Connect books to the real world through museums, theater, conversation, and related courses or criticism.
- Treat books as yours by writing in and marking them, and build your understanding through dialogue with others.
Details Worth Noting
-
Concrete instructions:
- Record yourself talking through a book (podcast or video), then play the recording back while exercising, listening to your own voice to reinforce what you said.
- To raise the stakes, set up a website, publish your reviews, and email them to people who like the author; or use podcast hosting (McEvoy mentions Libsyn as an example), free audio software (Audacity), and a decent microphone, then share episodes with friends and family.
- If you own a Kindle, you could use Amazon's Whispersync feature, which McEvoy speculates offers a discounted audiobook and syncs your place between the Kindle and the audiobook.
- Read paper books with notes, tabs, stickers, bookmarks, and a separate journal; McEvoy says you don't own a book until you deface it, though he keeps special editions (e.g., Everyman) pristine.
- After finishing a major book, re-read your marginalia and favorite passages, then take a course or read criticism (McEvoy mentions The Great Courses and Harold Bloom) to reinforce it.
- Visit related exhibits or performances and read the source material beforehand; McEvoy read Ovid's Metamorphoses after seeing an exhibit and then recorded a podcast on the Daedalus and Icarus story.
-
Reading selection: McEvoy says he prefers about 12 carefully chosen books a year over 300 skimmed ones, and he takes time with long novels like Anna Karenina.
-
Caveat: McEvoy notes that speed reading and skimming suit textbooks and research but not literature.
Bottom Line
Retention comes less from how many books you read and more from how actively and deliberately you engage with a few, through writing, speaking, listening, and discussing them.
