16 Tips On How To Read Non-Fiction Books Efficiently And Intelligently

Many people read for pleasure (e.g. novels, short stories, poetry), and in the majority of cases, it doesn’t really matter how much of that information we retain after we finish reading the book.

But when it comes to non-fiction books, there’s a good chance we’re reading it because we want to learn, understand, and remember the key points that the book makes.

That means we need to read these types of books, as well as business reports, for example, more efficiently and more intelligently – so we can extract and retain all of the salient details.

This may be important to people such as students at college or business people trying to increase their knowledge and skills (maybe with a view to getting a promotion or a better job, or perhaps because they want a career change).

This article reveals a few ways to help you obtain the maximum benefit from reading non-fiction books while doing so efficiently.

Choose Your Medium

When I was growing up, in the 1960s, if you wanted to read something, you had one option – an actual, physical book, printed on paper.

These days, however, we have many more options, such as different digital options (e.g PDFs, Kindle) as well as audio books.

Each of these has their own advantages and disadvantages, so you need to decide which medium (e.g. paper or digital) is best for each particular situation:

1. Additional Materials: With digital books, it’s easy to link to supporting materials (e.g. references, scientific papers), because all you need to do is click a link, like you would do on a web page, and you are immediately taken to that source. You can, of course, include URLs in paper books and even audio books, but you would have to manually re-type those links into a web browser. Also, with digital books, you can include images that link to larger versions, which means they may be easier to read, whereas audio books cannot even include photos and illustrations.
2. Availability: With a paper book, you have to make a conscious decision to take it with you, whereas it’s highly likely you’ll have access to digital books (e.g. on Kindle) or audio books wherever you go, because who doesn’t take their smartphone with them these days?
3. Credibility: It’s often easier to validate the credibility of a paper book than a digital one, that could be written by anybody. Note, though, that with on-demand self-publishing being so much easier and cheaper these days (i.e. the era of vanity printing, where a company would print hundreds or thousands of copies of your book all up front is more or less gone now), you do need to check whether the book was published by a recognized printing house or was self-published, because the latter carries far less weight, as a general rule. For example, self-published books, whether on paper or digital or audio, tend to be lower quality in terms of proofreading and editing.
4. Navigation: Although there’s nothing to stop you from slipping bookmarks into paper books, it can be easier in digital books (e.g. Kindle) where bookmarks can not only be added quickly, but returned to at a later date through navigation options. And digital bookmarks cannot fall out, like those in a paper book can. Both types of book should, of course, have a table of contents, although an index is usually more frequently found at the back of paper books (from recognized printing houses) than it is in a digital non-fiction book. And navigation in audio books is even more limited, or non-existent.
5. Notes: With paper books, you can write brief notes in the margin, but it can be hard to locate them again. With digital books (e.g. Kindle), you can add notes wherever you want, and find them again relatively easily. However, reading through a paper book with notes in the margin makes it hard to miss them, and they don’t interrupt your flow in the same way that they do in a digital book, where you have to take some form of action to open the note and then close it again. And with audio books, your only recourse is an external note-taking mechanism.
6. Portability: Paper books can be bulky and heavy to carry, whereas digital books and audio books weigh no more than the device you use to read them on (e.g. your smartphone, or maybe a portable cassette tape player if you’re going old-school).

You need to weigh up the pro’s and cons of the different formats for yourself, based on your preference, and the reasons why you are reading a particular book.

Even though the modern preference is for digital books wherever possible, there may be occasions when it makes more sense for you to choose the paper or audio format instead, so don’t automatically rule those options out.

Be Clear About Why You’re Reading A Book

This sounds like it should go without saying, but once you know why you’re reading a book, and what it is you hope to get out of it, it primes your mind to focus on what’s important to you.

Of course, sometimes (e.g. if you’re a student), you may be reading the book because you’ve been instructed to, but you should still try to answer these questions for yourself.

And, of course, if you’re looking to buy a book on a particular subject, knowing these answers will help you purchase the most appropriate book.

Use Available Information To Create A First Impression

Whether you’re buying a book in a store or online, you have access to certain details about that book before you part with your money.

This includes the:

• title
• subtitle
• cover
• back-cover text
• publication date
• author biographical notes
• table of contents
• introduction
• overall writing style
• index

Not all of this will be available for online books (e.g. an index), although these days, on sites such as Amazon, most of it should be.

This information is effectively a summary of the book itself, so you can use it to decide whether the book looks like a good fit for your needs (e.g. does the table of contents cover the topics you are interested in, is the information likely to still be current and relevant), and having a quick look at the author’s writing style can give you a clue whether it will work for you.

I’ve seen books that others rate highly, but the writing style simply didn’t work for me – it was like trying to run through treacle, as they say in England. (Treacle is like molasses, for those who have no idea what I’m talking about.)

(This is a technique that Michael Simmons refers to as fractal reading – because “fractals are objects where the same patterns happen at different levels of scale.” In other words, the book content is a larger version of the smaller pattern that is the book’s “metadata”, or the list of summary details shown above.)

Choose When And Where To Read

While many people love to read in bed before going to sleep (I used to do this until I discovered it was keeping me awake), this is not a great practice when reading non-fiction books.

So, to maximize your reading experience, make sure you choose a good time to read, and a good place.

For example, many people find that reading in the morning works best for them, while others prefer evening.

And for the location, you need to be comfortable, but not so comfy that you fall asleep, of course.

You should also make sure you have your note-taking materials to hand. (Having to to go and grab a notepad or pen is disruptive and will break your flow.)

And, of course, somewhere quiet would be better for concentration purposes, which isn’t to say you can’t have some relaxing music playing in the background. However, music with lyrics can often be a distraction, so try to avoid that.

The Three Readings Technique

Yes, you read that right – it is recommended that, with some books at least, you read them three times!

Why?

1. The first read is intended to be fast – more like a quick scan – to give you an idea of the central thesis of the book, and its overall structure and layout.
2. The second reading involves a more thorough read to understand and analyze the author’s central argument and points.
3. And finally, the third reading is so you can reflect on any questions you have about the content, as well as what you agree with and what you disagree with – and why – because this step increases your understanding of the book.

Understand The Structure

In some non-fiction books and reports, you can read only the introduction and summary to see whether the rest of the content (e.g. where supporting arguments will be made) is worth reading or not.

To be fair, this will apply more to reports and technical / science papers than entire books, but it’s still a worthwhile technique to save you from reading unnecessary material.

Read For Understanding, Not Information

While it’s sometimes the case that we read a book to assimilate the information it contains, it’s more important to understand the concepts presented.

So, being able to regurgitate facts and figures might indicate you remember the book, but that does not guarantee you understand what it’s saying,

If you are able to summarize the key message(s) of the book in your own words, in a way that others can appreciate, then this is a much better demonstration that you understand it.

Not All Books Need To Be Read Cover To Cover

Just because an author wrote the book in a certain way and order does not mean that’s always how you have to read it. (In some cases, of course, the information is cumulative, so you may not understand something if you’ve not read what’s gone before – unless you already know about the more basic elements of a subject.)

So feel free to use the table of contents, index (if it exists), and your own ability to scan through and identify the sections you need – whatever works for you, since you’re the one who knows what they’re looking to get out of the book.

Don’t Be Afraid To Give Up On A Book

It’s OK to not finish a book you started. Maybe you realized it wasn’t the book you thought it was, or maybe too much of it turned out to be irrelevant.

But there are times when it is actually recommended to give up on a book part way through, and that’s when you come across an even better one on the subject.

Make Reading A Habit

Many of the people who are successful set aside time every day to read, even scheduling it into their day,

Use The Search Feature

In most digital books these days, there is an option to search for specific words or phrases, which you can use to find occurrences of topics you are especially interested in.

Non-fiction books often have an index at the back, which is like a highly limited search that has been predefined for you.

Make Notes

These notes should be things such as:

• Key points you want to remember.
• Questions the text raises.
• Quotations you find inspiring.
• Things you agree with – and why.
• Things you don’t agree with – and why.
• References (e.g. page numbers, locations) to especially relevant sections.

These notes can be written:

• In the margin of a paper book.
• Using the electronic features (e.g. notes, bookmarks) of digital books.
• In a separate notebook (physical or digital) that you use to keep all your notes in.

These notes will help you:

• Find key information again at a later date.
• Understand what you got out of the book.
• Suggest additional topics to read about.
• Provide clues on what to look for on the next re-read.
• Review the book’s material to help you remember it.

Asking Questions

I’ve just touched on this in the previous tip, but asking yourself questions about what you’ve just read (e.g. what is the author really getting at here) is also a great way to stay engaged in a book.

Review

One of the best ways to remember new information is to review it, but not just once or at random – using spaced repetition.

According to Wikipedia, “spaced repetition is an evidence-based learning technique that is usually performed with flashcards. Newly introduced and more difficult flashcards are shown more frequently while older and less difficult flashcards are shown less frequently in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect. The use of spaced repetition has been shown to increase the rate of learning”.

One way to make use of this is to turn the key points from your notes into flashcards, and then use those for regular, spaced reviews.

While you can create these flashcards manually, it’s usually better and easier to use software or apps that are designed for this purpose. Just create the necessary flashcards, using the software, and then use it every day, leaving the app to determine which questions to ask you when. (My preference is Anki, which I’ve been using since it was an application for the PalmPilot PDA, around 20 or so years ago.)

Quality, Not Quantity

What really matters is not how many books you’ve read, but how much you get out of the ones you read.

There’s an adage in the world of magicians that says if you get one performable trick out of an entire book, it was worth the cost of the book.

And the same goes for any non-fiction book – if you get one useful piece of information or one actionable idea out of it, then it was time (and money) well-spent.

Speed Reading

I can not finish this article without touching on speed reading, and its variants (e.g. photo reading).

There are many misconceptions about what speed reading is, including the fact that it’s only about reading faster.

There is, of course, no point reading fast if you cannot understand or retain what you’ve just read.

Intelligent, or variable, speed reading means you speed up through the parts that are of no interest, and slow down for the bits where you need to pay more attention.

You might also want to check out this article, where I go into speed reading in more depth.

Conclusion

I hope you found this article useful – and don’t forget to go and re-read it twice more, as per the Three Readings Technique. 🙂

Seriously, just trying a few of these tips will help you get more out of the time you spend reading.

And for those of us who are also writers (either current or aspiring), the article suggests a few ways you can write with your readers in mind. For example, consider including:

1. A title and subtitle that clearly summarizes what your book is about. While your title may or may not be clever or somewhat obtuse, the subtitle should be very clear about your book’s subject matter.
2. Back-cover text, where appropriate that summarizes what the book is about, and what people can expect to gain from reading it.
3. Author biographical information (including a photo) to help support your authority and credibility.
4. A detailed table of contents, maybe with multiple levels (e.g. not just chapter headings, but sub-headings from within the chapters too).
5. An index at the back. (This can be a specialized job to do it well.)
6. Sub-headings throughout the book to help readers who like to scan when looking for the interesting or relevant parts.
7. Links to source material, so readers can either dig deeper or validate your reasoning.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Anki
2. Intelligent Reading