10 Tips to Read More and Read Better: Number 4

Tim Chailles has written a list of 10 Tips to Read More and Read Better. His blog is one of my favorite sites. I really like his points on reading ( not to mention that I am an addicted reader and bibliophile) so I am going to quote one of his ten points each day for ten days. I encourage all my readers to put this into practice.

Fourth on his list is :

Read Interactively - Reading is best done, at least when enjoying serious books, when you work hard at understanding the book and when you interact with the author’s arguments. Read with a highlighter and pencil in hand. Ask questions of the author and expect him to answer them through the course of the text. Scrawl notes in the margins, write questions inside the front cover, and return to them often (and, if the questions remain unanswered, even seek to contact the author!). Highlight the most important portions of the book, or the ones you intend to return to later. As Al Mohler says, “Books are to be read and used, not collected and coddled.” I have found that writing reviews of the books I read is a valuable way of returning at least one more time to the book to make sure that I understand what the author was trying to say and how he said it. So interact with those books and make them your own.