learning to be reflective about reading

[hwarium]

Mid-way through 2021 I started being more reflective after reading. I usually read things once and move on but I found that I barely remember what I thought about a book. I remembered whether or not I enjoyed it, and maybe some quotes because I took notes. But that was it.

A few things happened. I was giving book recs and I had to think about why I liked a book and what it was about. I was writing and thinking of things I wanted to emulate but could not, for the life of me, recall the source. And I came across Ali Abdaal’s video on “how to remember everything you read”.

(He’s like, an productivity personality and even though I don’t align with his life approach, I’ve learnt a lot from his videos (like the value of a second brain and a resonance calendar, more on that in another dreamwidth post once I figure out what works for me)).

Cue oh moment. I’ve been taking reading notes since 2010 but those were only quotes or vocab. I never reflected, summarised, or assessed. I look at my goodreads and there are just so many books I have no memory of reading. And that makes hwa stressed because I feel like that was sunk time and that I lost a part of myself ( but this is part of a wider hwa problem where I want to remember everything in my life).

Like recently, a mutual-in-law is reading if on a Winter’s Night a Traveller and I just want to yell about how much I love that book but my brain kind of fell short at why and how and what I liked about it. Sure, it’s metafiction and fun, but you can get that off the wiki. What did /I/ like about it and what were /my/ favourite parts. I want to drop in to the conversation and add something constructive but brain has lost that memory!! Why don't I remember what I read!!

For example, I have Baudrillard’s Simulacra & Simulation on my shelf right now but it sounds so dry I don’t want to pick it up. I know for a fact this is the book behind the Matrix but I also know that was not why I bought it. I wish I wrote down why. Was it quoted on literarykpop and something shook me? Did a mutual rec it? Was it cited in one of Ted Chiang’s stories? If I wrote it down I could go back after reading, back to the mutual to yell at them, or go back to the short story to reread under a new context.

Also, I want to immortalise that slice of history so I can read back and think things like “you little shit you didn’t understand Vonnegut because you were 16 and pretentious” etc etc. Also because a state of mind is unique. I could never be 16 again and think I understand Vonnegut. If I read it again now, my thoughts may be completely different.

So, I need to reflect on what I read, soon after reading.

This makes sense because of how memory is processed and stored. It’s a mix of recall and reconstruction. When you experience something, the hippocampus only holds on to vivid personal memories and starts to process them for storage in the other parts of the brain. But it’s not efficient to remember the total experience so it rewrites the memory each time you recall and interpret. In the end, you’re only left with what you need. For example, right after a holiday I can probably step through what we did each day. The first time a friend asks me “how was your holiday?”, I have to sift through my memories to make a judgment and pick out 5 or so highlights. But the next time I’m asked, I just go off my previous answer. I don’t remember the holiday. I remember it was good and that the hot springs were nice. As time passes, when I remember the holiday, I only think of the 5 memories I pulled up that first time. I don’t recall my experience, I recall my reconstruction.

Therefore, it’s important to reconstruct my memory soon after reading, while I still have the book in front of me and while the story is in my short-term memory. I might give it a few days to marinate, but if I wait too long, my memory of the book is no longer reliable. I lose the ability to make links because details fall away and I only remember a weak, flimsy reconstruction of my first (uncritical) impression that’s probably mixed with stuff I read online and other people’s reviews. Like, I might recall a book is good, and then later read a mutual saying they loved the book because of the triangulation dynamics, and the brain (because it confabulates), will go, okay, you liked this book because of the dynamics. But that may not have been my original thought at the time of reading! (Haha, now that I write it out, it’s similar to interviewing eyewitnesses after a crime and preventing the formation of false memories. Btw, I learnt all this from Diving for Seahorses — highly recommend for anyone interested in how memory works)

Going forward, I’m trying to find a balance between “write as many notes as you can hwa” and “low expectations are sustainable hwa” :’D If I write 4.4k each time like I did for Left Hand of Darkness ….. there will be no book notes.

So! At a minimum, I want to write down:

1. why I read the book and how it got to me (who recced it, why I chose it)
2. where I read it (because remembering places helps with recall, method of loci!!)
3. summary (if someone asked me what the book was about, this is what I would say)
4. who should read it
5. my impressions (with brief reasoning. this has the benefit of not needing to enunciate reasons years later because I’ve already written it out once and now I can just copy+paste+hijack. I am also immensely disappointed I didn’t write my Poppy War/Burning God hate post right after reading when I was filled with rage. I know that if I have to do my feelings justice I have to read the book again and I am… not ready.)
6. what I want to try in my own writing (very important! this will link to my resonance calendar)
   • a resonance calendar is a repository of stuff I keep coming back to. Something that hits you in a different way. You don't even have to actively recall it, it just pops up in your memory randomly. I want to write it down in one place so I don't have to wait for the spontaneous recall. The memory never comes when you sit down to be creative haha. I'm still working on one! coming soon to dreamwidth!

Ta da! More book notes coming 2022 to hwarium @ dreamwidth. I’ll be curious to hear how mutuals process and think about the books they’ve read. If there’s other things you will note down or what programs you use to store notes or if you have a system n___n Also want to make a book club on dreamwidth but let’s think about that after 17hols HAHA.

Comments

[latespring]

hwa this is so interesting!!! I have similar problems with books and coming back to them, and also class notes in a way? part of it might be that I'm doing my thesis now so everything is funneling back to that. but I often come back to this problem-- particularly with "oh why did I want to pick this up?"/"who did I want to talk about this with?" your format for reflections looks really great! I might pull from part of that for my monthly roundups <.<

really looking forward to your thoughts on Ali Abdaal later! what were you thinking for how to construct these things? and also ty for sharing on memory~

[hwarium]

ooh class notes - yeah I wish I learnt about 'evergreen notes' or the 'zettelkasten method (i.e. where you take reading notes that can be copy+pasted into the paragraph of another piece of writing. like 'blocks' of information. My thesis would have been so much less painful but! life is one long learning journey.

++ when I write, I realise what I need, and that feed backs into how I take notes. Curious to see how my notes will change throughout the next year, just the little mental switch to be consciously reflective did a lot *__*

Keen to see your monthly roundups next time then!! For the resonance calendar, I considered using notion but I really don't trust technology haha (especially after the curious cat blackout). I still much prefer the comfort of handwriting, even if that means the data is not searchable. But now I have a mix of hard and soft notes (e.g. kindle highlights and goodreads stats)

Short term plan is to do rec lists (all time fic recs, yearly book sweeps) that acts both as a sharing platform and as a personal index, so that I at least know the notes exist somewhere!

[latespring]

ooooh looking these up for later, ty~

I've considered notion for some things before too, but it's kind of intimidating in its flexibility! maybe for later? I'm looking forward to wherever your indexing takes you!!