I mostly read digitally so I'll highlight or bookmark parts I find interesting or think I'll want to find again. Otherwise I just read it like any other book. I don't usually have a hard time remembering what's in a book and generally find it easy enough to go back and look up details if I need to. which I do do every once in a while.

I use it for keeping track of the books I have and the ones I read, and also my opinions about them.

The recommendations by the site are useless to me, and the opinions of other readers are more hit than miss. Often the most voted ones are full of emoticons and memes, or do not say anything useful about the book but are upvoted because the reviewer is popular or something. A lot of reviewers have not even read the book, and are mad at the writer because of some Twitter controversy or things like that.

Lists are also extremely useless, same as the newsletter.

I'm not completly sure how this type of books is called in english because I'm not a native speaker. But I'm referring to books like "The Slight Edge", "Thinking fast and slow" or "The psychology of money"

Sorry I kind of rambled, I guess my point would be : take short breaks and during those breaks try to think about you just read and what the author wanted to convey, and also don't bore yourself out :) !

When reading non-fiction I treat it as if i'm sitting in a college class and the author is giving me a lecture on something, except I take a lot of pauses to digest, otherwise I find that I just keep going without integrating much. I have to stop every ten pages or so to grab some water or change music or w/e. It's only for a couple of minutes but it helps me a lot to think about what i just read and kind of keep it fresh in my head, and eventually it just registers haha (Note that most non-fiction I read is either research or history books)

I take no notice of Goodreads recommendations. I use it for recording my thoughts on the books I have read.

I'm currently reading a narrative non-fiction book in my back yard with the evening sun on my back, a beer at hand, and the radio playing in the background. Shortly, I will continue reading, listening, and drinking beer while I cook dinner on the barbecue.

For self-helps, how-tos, autobiographies, or historical books, I treat them as if the author is sending me a really long letter or email. Or like a random blog post or article on the internet. I usually go chapter by chapter. I can never read a nonfiction book in one sitting.

I'm not that great with remembering either. But maybe look at it like this: Do you actually retain more information for longer by taking notes to warrant the effort? I'd hazard a guess, that it doesn't work very well. You'd presumably have to make flashcards and use spaced repetition, which is even more effort, but probably your best bet if you actually want to be able to recall information off the top of your head.

But I don't do this. Instead, I find it enjoyable to talk to a friend about what I read recently if I want to retain it better. Trying to explain something a bit after you've read about it is more engaging than jotting down excerpts or dot points from the text. Hopefully, that's then enough to retain a rudimentary recollection, which you can then use to look up the more complete picture from the book or another source later, if you want it.

There are different types of non-fiction book: textbooks, creative non-fiction, popular non-fiction, and so on. Which are you referring to?

Sometimes I’ll just highlight the stuff I want to remember or leave stickies. But I struggle with this too so I hope other people have advice

So how exactly do you approach them? Write every important aspect down as soon as you read it?

Me too! I’ve been approaching them like textbooks hahaha

>So what is this app really for?

Different people use it for different things. I've posted before on some of the lesser-known features Goodreads has and how I use the site.

I get most of my recommendations from BookTube, podcasts, and r/suggestmeabook.

i've read many emotional and violent or tragic books but on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong sticks out, probably bc such a bleak story was written so beautifully.

also i think abt the part about veal at least once a week so

The first time I got my hands on The Lord of the Rings I read it once in just a couple of days (very little sleep), then immediately read it through once again. Then I had to return it to the library.

Since then, I got my own copy (actually I think I have three now), and read it again a few times. For the last 20 years I've kind of settled to reading it once every summer, slowly, enjoying it.

Read something like hitchhikers guide to the galaxy it's great to start with making fun of fiction and introducing many new concepts

That’s my goal! I want my list at the end to be as inclusive as possible and have really enjoyed challenging myself with that!

I use apps like the free dictionary and dictionary.com . By creating an account you can save the words you have searched.

If I own the book, I write the definitions on the pages where I encounter the words and sometimes even do drawings.

It makes for very slow reading though. Hopefully I'll eventually reach a point where I don't feel the need to look up the words.

The annoying part of reading in a second language for me is that I usually don't know if the word is known by a majority of people. Reading in my native language I may stumble on a word I don't know and think : I'm positively certain that over 99% of people don't know that word so I don't see why I should.

Kite Runner, Homegoing (some chapters), Secret Daughter, and Long Bright River were some of the hardest reads for me!

I love re-reading The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. As I age I find that life experience gives me a deeper view of the characters and their relationships. Pretty much any book by Carol Shields or Margaret Laurence also has this effect if I re-read them.

Oh sorry! I didn't realize there was one

Please warn that there is a spoiler in your post, that book was in my to read list 😅

"Good ones."

Funnily enough, I fully agree with you. A few years ago My one group of girlfriends loved her, and I had come forward about my engagement about to end and why, so they told me to read it. This was not a topic they were familiar with, and I’m not easy to trigger, so I didn’t mind, but it was just such a weird book.

Him facing no punishment is very realistic. I didn’t do anything either, and there have been times since we split where we’ve been completely copacetic (we are not speaking anymore, fwiw) despite what happened. It’s like your brain just won’t acknowledge that something bad happened or how bad it was.

Now, while that made it fairly realistic (not for every woman, I realize) it still bothered me because it made it MORE normalized. I should have done something and not let someone get away with it, and I don’t want a book glossing over that being a very real (and favourable if you can stay safe) potential outcome. I don’t want my feelings to be normalized, what if I don’t leave at all next time?

I hope that made sense. 😂