Discussion

I retain significantly more of what I read if I talk about it with others. And this doesn’t have to be person to person. When I finished a book, I immediately look for threads on it to see what people have said about it. Sometimes someone will bring up something challenging the ideas in a book, sometimes people give further context to something, sometimes people will just interpret something entirely differently making me go back and reread to see if I can get their perspective on it etc. It’s basically repetition for me.

I even do this with fiction books. I’m a very literal reader. I don’t look for symbolism or between the lines meanings during my first reading. I prefer to just read for the story, and then go back and look for meaning. Threads afterwards help a lot with forming my own opinion.