[lordCarbonFiber]

I'll take a different stance than a lot of the other commenters here, in today's digital age reading for full retention is often over kill. An awareness of the topic, plus a retention of the source allows you to cover information at a much quicker pace and it useful if you don't need to apply any specific details in the immediate future. I find having a breadth of information available is much more useful for creatively solving problems and the internet + cloud storage means the full text is never far away if I need to pursue immediate details.