1. Quality over Quantity.
2. Always carry a book with you.
3. Read with a pen.
4. Books are not precious things.
5. Read while you eat.
6. Stop watching news.
7. ReRead books.
8. Don’t be a snob.
9. Keep a commonplace book.
10. Quit bad books.
11. Good books aren’t hard.
12. Ask “What book changed your life?”
13. Look for wisdom not facts.
14. Find your next book in that book. Footnotes, annexures, bibliography
15. Read everything about the authors you love.
16. Buy books immediately
17. Speed reading is a scam
18. Build an anti-library
19. Read like a spy.
20. Go to bookstores.
21. Don’t skip prefaces
22. Pay it forward.
Number three and four, I have some disagreements with; it stinks to find a great book at a great price, and find that they have been completely written in. Especially if all of the underlining is shaky and the writing is unreadable.
And, books are precious things. But I do get that usage is okay, however beating them up is unnecessary. I do like well-used books, but not abusing them when there is no need to.
Re-reading books, ABSOLUTELY. Totally correct.
Quitting bad books, yeah. Back in the day there are some horrible books I just plowed through because I wasn’t a quitter. I’m far more of a quitter these days. My interest in Science Fiction took a big hit when I began to quit bad books, because so many of them have great covers and reviews, but are absolutely terrible.
I was at a bookseller recently, and this woman made a comment about a political figure, mocking the idea of reading his book. That is how one stays ignorant. That book represents, that political figure, he signed off on it, and that is how one learns more about that person. Hate him or like him, one would know more by reading about him. Instead, she apparently only reads things that she agrees with, which is just a big echo chamber, comfortable ignorance.
I keep a file on my phone/computer of passages that I find I want to remember. It is quite extensive now.
What I need to do is build a character list of characters in a book, as I come across them when reading. A good reference which would help as I get along in the book. But I don’t always want to stop to do this, but it would really be helpful. I actually did this in high school when reading “IT”, by Stephen King. The character list I made still exists today, bad handwriting and all!
