Maximizing a Paperback

People often wonder, "What" to read. While it is a reasonable question to ask, it almost never gets followed by a "How" to read. The ambit of the "How" gets defined by the "Why". In this triangle of What to read, How to read, and Why to read, most get lost and their appetite or interest for books plummets.

Today let us try to open up this triangle and introduce a linear solution to maximise your reading. From where I see it the first question you need to tackle is the Why, then the What and then the How. 

Why do you read: A summary of your expectations from your paperback.

People read (or don't) for a myriad of reasons. Most of the reasons have a bearing upon their influences when they were growing up. Some are attracted to their father's library, some indifferent to it. Some had such a bad experience with their first book, they never took the trouble of going ahead. I feel whenever you pick up a book, the first question you must ask yourself is "Why do I wish to read". Your reasons could be anything from "It would make me sound smart", "All my friends read and I don't want to be left out", " My parents have ordered me to read", "Reading would help me in my thesis"  or " Reading seems fun". No matter the reason, the eventual goal remains to make whatever you're reading yours, in a manner wherein the best parts speak to you, and stay with you for a long time. No one willingly reads a book only to forget what it was all about (for that we have school textbooks). Hence it is imperative to know your "Why" and then proceed onto the "What"

What do you read: Lost in the abundance

I feel one question, which albeit very important, happens to get stressed on a little too much is " What to read". I have realised that as long as you read a book with some reasonable credibility, the right way, you're bound to take home some parts of that book Don't keep waiting for that perfect book, because to be very frank such a book doesn't exist. Just do your basic recce, and if you find some interesting plot points or some overbearing recommendations, you can rest assured go for that book. A point of caution here is that there is no book which you "HAVE" to like. People make this mistake of forcing themselves to like a book just to conform to standards. If you wish to have a good time while reading and keep reading for a good amount of time, then you've got to discover yourself organically, through your own choices. A book like Plato's Republic might be one of the most important and influential books about philosophy and politics, but if you don't find the premise interesting or once in, the book is not able to hold your interest, it's best to move on without any guilt or pressure. Books will come to you when you are ready, forcing yourself to read say Shakespeare grudgingly just for the sake of it, does a great disservice to not just the author and the book but to you too, taking away the fun and learning out of the process

How do I read: The real deal. 

People often baulk at the idea of "Reading the Right way", how can something so commonplace like reading, have nuances attached to it. The answer to how you read is simple - with your eyes. While this answer might suit a precocious little child, for serious readers it is certainly not so. Coming back to our first question, if we have a "Why" in place, the "How" will follow, to paraphrase Neitsche. Most of the time the "Why" is a simple sense of intrigue. You read a book, to know. It might be about Westeros, it might be about the Selfish Gene or it might be about the Boston Tea Party, you read so that you may know, and what good is knowledge if it goes as quickly as it came. So the answer to maximizing a paperback pivots around how you read a book. In my view, there are 3 things which you must always do in order to ensure a better reading experience and maximising your gains from your paperback

a) - Read, Think, Repeat: One thing which you've got to give a book is time. This holds true both for general as well as academic reading. Don't rush through the pages in a hurry simply to finish the book, rather, read a page (or a paragraph depending upon your concentration span) and try to build a picture of what you just read in your head i.e actively think about it. This ratio of thinking to reading, will not just ensure a more engaging read but would also help you understand the book better

b) - Searching you way out: What every reader needs while he's reading, is a good search engine at your behest. For every word whose meaning you didn't get, or for every reference that went over you, it is imperative that you take out those couple of seconds and sort out your doubts before proceeding further. Most readers fall into a trap of passivity just because they're too lazy to devote these couple of pesky seconds to search. The problem compounds as the pages go by, and the context of the book or the passage or the prose starts becoming more alien. This habit of active reading would not only help you understand the book better but would also increase your concentration capacity. 

c) - Making Notes: It cannot be a bigger misconception to associate note making with classroom lectures or reading academic manuscripts. Note making helps you in various ways. First, it helps reinforce the information which you just acquired by reading, in your brain once again. Further, it makes subsequent readings of a book much more efficient. Notes (or even e-notes) help you create a repository of the best parts of the book always at your beck and call for a quick look or revision, and not just in an academic sense. No one can hope to remember every good part or every eureka fact of a substantially thick tome. So rather than struggling in your head to reproduce that one fact or that one saying or that one anecdote, it is always better to make short notes of the same either in the margins of the book itself or on a web platform like Evernote(my preference). 

So coming back to our initial triangle of Why, What and How. I feel for an immersive reading experience, you should first tackle the Why and get your reasons in order, then spend a little (not too much)time on the What and decide on a book and then using the aforementioned methods tackle your How. Once this cycle is complete, you should start again, with another thought, another doubt, another Why, and then call upon the What and How once again to help you out. 

I hope, moving ahead, this would make the journey on the paperback trails more interesting and enriching for you. Comment down below if you use any other trick to maximise your reading output both quantity and quality wise. Until then, keep reading, keep recommending and keep sharing the love, for more the passengers in the paperback trails the better.