Books

It’s a tricky situation, because reading a book you don’t care about, whose topic triggers no interest in you, most likely will not improve for life at all. On the other, challenging yourself, discover new things, reading some “unpleasant” books (I am thinking along the lines of the Anne Frank’s Diary) does expand your horizons and help you develop. And sometimes I read some books I only understood in hindsight, maybe with some help. Off the top of my head I can think of “the man in the high castle” making way more sense after reading its Wikipedia page, or “de Avonden”/“the evenings” clicking in my brain only after a friend of mine told me “it’s a book about PTSD”. While reading the last one, I thought it was quite dull but stick with it just because. Now I’m glad I did. On the contrary, I also stuck with GRRMartin way too long, and nobody is going to give me back those hours. I still think those books are an exercise of “look how many plot twists I can stack!” and I dislike them all.

Absolutely. Ignoring all the books you don't like is a perfect recipe for ignorance.

There's always room for people in this wild world whose opinions are wrong.

I'm also in my 60s, I'm recently retired, and have been reading quite a bit (not as much as you, but I'm on my 70th book since the beginning of the year).

A couple years ago, I started keeping a log of the books I've read. It's just title, author, brief synopsis, whether I liked it or not, and maybe a little commentary. I initially started it just so I could remember what books I read, but then some friends started asking to see it to help them their next book.

It's really helped me remember what I've read. Often I can remember just from hearing the title, but sometimes I have to look back at my notes, and then it usually all comes back to me. You might give it a try and see if it helps you, too.

I too found myself not being able to really discuss books I had read that long ago. So I slowed down my reading pace. Not just how many I take in, but how much time I spend reading the books. With particularly challenging things I have always returned to them, and re-read them as my understanding of the book expands, or my perspective on things changes, however I realized I remembered them in far more detail than others, and it was because the challenge slowed me down, and forced me to spend time contemplating what it was I was reading, as I was reading it.

I enjoy reading a lot more now. I am not in university any more, I do not have to read 500 pages per day.

i think one solution is to take notes while reading. maybe try and summarize the plot or write down some interesting things. I also read a lot and notes help keep things together. What I do after reading a book is to go through the highlights I made (which don't take much effort in the moment) and see if I wanna make any of them permanent in my obsidian vault. That process takes from ten minutes to an hour per book, but that's how insights stick. It gets you actually thinking about the book, instead of just experiencing it without much brain activity. But sometimes when I know I'm reading trash turning off my brain can be comfortable too.

In school I was forced practically at gunpoint to stare at poetry and regurgitate the teacher/professor's opinions about what it means. It killed my ability to enjoy poetry for over two decades.

Reading something that doesn't engage with you is not helpful. Ever.

I know, right? It's an amazing list!

Of course!