Time to pick up where I last left off.
In just a moment, I’ll explain as best as I can how to use “dialogue with book 2.0” to make our reading experience memorable, especially with non-fiction books. Remembering things becomes easier when we have memorable moments. Plus, there’ll be higher chance we become curious about how what we’ve read can improve our lives when applied.
But before we get there, there’s one thing we need to take care of, first and foremost, and that is our interest in non-fiction books.
I must admit, just imagining reading heavy technical book, for example, can feel overwhelming, and I’m sure that’s the case with many of us. This is understandable, but just as damp wood can’t start a fire, approaching a book with half-hearted interest won’t yield much value.
Rekindling our interest in books
There are numerous reasons that make us not feel like reading, but the main one is the idea from our school days that not reading everything in the book equals failure. This belief sticks with us into adulthood, causing us to feel like we’re failing if we don’t finish a book. Under such pressure, how can we enjoy reading?
So first things first, we need to correct this way of thinking to relieve us of such unnecessary pressure. There are three things to keep in mind to re-spark our interest in books.
One, it’s totally fine to not read every part of a book. If some sections don’t interest us, it’s okay to skip them, or even skip the whole book if we don’t connect with the author. We can always come back later, or not at all. This way, we already save ourselves potentially 10 hours of reading a book that won’t really help us.
Two, it’s better to read fewer books. It’s much, much better to read and reread one book, picking out one or two things to use to improve our lives, rather than to read 100 books and learn nothing at all.
And three, we don’t always have to read in order, and this is one good thing about non-fiction books. We can jump around chapters as we like. This gives us flexibility and helps us focus on what’s most interesting and valuable to us.
Now, here are the complete steps for doing “dialogue with book 2.0”.
Step 1: Getting our brain prepared
One more useful thing that I could pick up from the speed-reading seminar I attended, which is still fresh in my memory to this day, is the concept of pre-reading.
Here’s how we do effective pre-reading: first take a quick look at the table of contents, skim through the chapters, and check out the subheadings and any lists. Then, flip to the end of the chapter. If there’s a summary or review questions, give them a once-over too.
This technique, I later learned, is called “priming”.
Priming helps our brain get more ready to pick out the most important information when we actually read, making it easy for us to understand and connect with what the author says. Not only does this speed up our reading, but it also makes it feel more enjoyable.
Step 2: Reading solely to understand
In “dialogue with book 2.0”, we treat the book like we're talking to the author directly. This means we need to be “polite”.
I remember my English teacher in middle school always told her students not to do anything else when she was explaining. We had to just listen. She’d give us time to write down what we understood in our own words. And if needed, we could ask her to explain again.
It's the same when we read. We should let the author speak first. Our job is just to listen and understand.
We shouldn't be in a hurry to highlight or take notes right away. That's not polite. There's a right order to do things. If we follow it, everything will likely turn as we desire.
In fact, this reading part is very vital in the whole process, as it’s where we are “doing input”. Remember “garbage in, garbage out”. How are we supposed to take useful notes or apply the principles presented in the book correctly later if what we understand is no more than just garbage?
Step 3: Interacting with the book
Now comes the most anticipated part: talking with the book (or rather, should I say, with the author?) Anyway, we are already at the heart of “dialogue with book 2.0”.
There are many ways to “hold a dialogue” with the book. Whichever method we choose is fine, as long as we don’t mind “making our book a bit messy”.
Here are some examples from what I do:
1. Highlighting
After understanding what the author is saying, I’ll highlight the important parts with one or more colors.
But I make sure that only really important parts that I highlight, or I’ll end up no more than just changing the background color.
This is why it’s extremely important to really understand what we read first, so we can pick out one or two things that we think are super important to remember.
2. Marking
When something stands out or I remember I’ve learned similar thing from somewhere, I’ll circle the whole line or paragraph. Sometimes, I’ll put a question mark in the margin if I disagree or am confused about what the author said. This helps my eyes quickly find which one I need to check and verify when I go back later.
Authors can make mistakes too. So, while respecting their ideas, we also need to be critical. Instead of just receiving and believing everything we read, we should filter the ideas and information through our own thoughts.
Then, if there’s a line or saying that I really like, I’ll underline it and draw a star in the margin. Sometimes, I’ll stick a small post-it as bookmark there to instantly get me to that part again later.
3. Leaving small notes
Occasionally, a new idea pops up. When that happens, I’ll quickly write it in the margin next to the triggering line or paragraph, before I forget.
Other times, I jot down some keywords from the line or paragraph that captures my attention. This helps my brain stay alert for similar phrases, and also helps me remember what keywords I should use to research further.
Step 4: Processing the information we’ve just learned
The next step is to explore other sources that can add to what we're reading, or even make us more interested in the topic. These sources could be other books, a podcast, or even a movie or video game!
Usually, we’ll find lots of interesting concepts in these sources. They can help enrich our understanding, or even give us some other good ideas we can consider to pursue later. And, of course, we often remember things we learn this way for a long time!
For example, I learned many cool tricks from my favorite manga, anime, or video game. Like, I knew the concept called the plank of Carneades from the mystery manga I like, Kindaichi, and I can still remember it to this day!
The best time for this step is right after finishing a chapter. That’s because everything we’ve just read and all our interactions with the book are still fresh in our mind. We shouldn’t let this momentum go to waste!
With all the additional information we’ve got from these other sources in hand, we’ll return to our bookmarks, small notes, and markings, and start addressing the parts we didn’t agree with or found confusing. We’ll connect the dots and make sense of things using our reasoning skill and personal experiences.
At this point, until we complete the last step I’m about to describe, we must resist the urge to move on to the next chapter. Let everything marinate in our minds first.
We can use any empty spaces in the chapter, like a big blank area after the chapter ends, or the adjacent page left blank on purpose, to jot down simple notes on the connection we’ve made, how we plan to use them, and what we should research more.
This way, we’re making more robust pathway in our brain to the knowledge and information we’ve processed, making sure it’s ingrained even deeper in our subconscious.
Step 5: Documenting our takeaways from the book
At last, we’ve reached the final step: preserving the “gift” we could bring home from our “conversation” with the author.
For this purpose, we’ll need a journal, diary, PC, or note-taking apps, or whatever feels right for us to archive our thoughts and ideas.
Just like previous step, it’s best to do this last step right after we finish processing the information from the chapter we’ve just read. This will make it less overwhelming compared to doing it after we finish the whole book with lots of notes written here and there.
Here, we’ll once again review all our notes, including the most recent ones. Then, we’ll carefully transcribe the concepts into our journal or on our PC using words we find easy to grasp at a glance — essentially tidying them up and putting them together as our personal summary.
Making a recap like this will not only solidify our understanding and memory but also free our brain from the heavy burden of having to store everything, thus creating room for other new information.
What we’ll get from this step is something we can call our “second brain”, which we can access whenever we need to recall the lessons learned — whether to apply them, use them for a presentation, or share them on blog or social media for later discussions.
The more frequently we access our “second brain” to revisit and apply the ideas stored inside, the longer they will endure in our memory.
This is due to our brain's tendency to prioritize information that is frequently used, recently used, and likely to be needed for decision-making — a phenomenon known as heuristic memory processing.
After we're done with this last part, we can continue with the next chapter and start over from step 1.
Setbacks and trade-offs
I’d like to emphasize that “dialogue with book 2.0” has become greatly different from the original “dialogue with book” that was introduced as a speed-reading technique, as it lengthens the reading process significantly.
But in return, we can understand the content of the book we read much better and remember it for much longer time.
By adopting Dr. Kabasawa’s principle, I’ve balanced between “doing input” and “doing output”, resulting in a more active reading approach.
The original “dialogue of book” leaned only on passive learning or “doing input”. I’ve modified this by introducing other activities or “doing output” into the process like highlighting, note-taking, synthesizing, and ultimately summarizing.
The result is that reading transforms from a passive activity into a dynamic process, consequently extending the time needed to finish one book remarkably.
But considering the benefits we’ll receive, I believe it’s a fair “price” to pay, as we’ll get one or more things from the book that we can use to change our life for the better.