[2143]

I see so many comments about taking notes while reading. I didn't even know that was a thing. I'm not even sure if I would want to do it, because it would interrupt the reading. My own personal belief (which I came up with just now) is that reading novels should be a smooth relatively easy affair. Because I read simply for the fun of it. This may not be the case with academic books however. I just, start reading.

I have in fact stalled on books before though off the top of my head only SICP and Anna Karenina come to mind. I'll reattempt both of them in the near future. Stalling on SICP was probably due to me not having the sufficient math background, which I'm slowly working on fixing. The post you wrote gives me hope.

There's a possibility that I've been doing things the wrong way all these years.

[skydhash]

First read, I don’t take notes unless I’m familiar with the material. At most, I’ll mark interesting passages. But I usually pause after each or every two chapters, reflecting on the concepts.

I don’t take notes with fiction books, but I pause whenever I can’t give it my full attention (interruptions, some other tasks, tired).

[troad]

I think taking notes while reading fiction would be relatively unusual (outside fields like literary criticism), but taking notes while reading non-fiction is quite common, especially when grappling with denser material.

For example, I kept extensive notes while reading Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. The work assumes you're internalising as you go along, which is somewhat inescapable given the nature of the material. The author can't stop to re-explain some finer point of Aristotle's every time it is engaged with in the subsequent two thousand years.

Pausing to take notes helps one reflect on the material and solidify their understanding, but also gives them a quick reference later if necessary. I just use my phone's Notes app, to keep the barrier as low as possible.