[tomxor]

> Reading them the same way as you'd read a novel doesn't seem right.

I think most technical books end up being organised like a reference manual for some reason - not necessarily as dry - but in a way that appears to facilitate some some externally driven learning activity by augmenting it.

> Do you really finish such books? What am I doing wrong?

Not personally, i'm terrible at penetrating any such book until I have a problem at hand that requires it. However I have found a few books that are technical while being enjoyable and engaging at the same time, in much the same way as a novel: "The Feynman Lectures" (Physics), "Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book", "Thinking Forth" (Programming). These books are well known, I think their popularity is in no small part due to how accessible they are without diminishing the quality of their technical content - I would like to find more books that have this quality.