{"id":798,"date":"2023-08-06T12:06:15","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T12:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/?p=798"},"modified":"2023-08-07T03:23:26","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T03:23:26","slug":"how-do-you-read-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/how-do-you-read-books\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you read books?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ran out of sticky notes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

One friend saw me reading ‘Made to Stick’ which is the only book where I\u2019ve used an entire packet of sticky notes and then some more. He asked, so what were the top learnings from this book? And I went blank. He asked again, seriously, not even top three or one? I went blank again.\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mind chatter as much as I can recall was – <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve to come up with an intelligent answer summarizing the best points.
I\u2019m not good with summaries, I\u2019m more of a story person.
How can one summarize a great book?
Why haven\u2019t I re-read this book?
I should have read this sooner.
Shit, I should have noted down the pointers and tried to implement in day-to-day basis.
What\u2019s the point of reading a book, if I don\u2019t have any take-aways?
Am I actually reading the book the right way?
But\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously?? Not even one? He asked again.
I looked him in the eye and said NO.\u00a0
Wow!! He laughed and went off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Those words hung in the air like a terrible-smelling fart. And my mental chatter resumed.
When you absorb a book it just changes you like becoming one year wiser of sorts. Sure, I remember some pointers from the book but the core message was how to write better content that leaves an impression on readers’ minds. And it’s filled with examples and principles to drive that point home. Every chapter of this book was gold. Hence, the dam of sticky notes.\u00a0But regardless, this one really needed a re-read.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My default pick for books is Autobiographies. Last year was more of founders’\/business biographies and this year has been quite an eclectic bunch – from sports, singers, animal lovers, mountaineering, business, medicine, travel, lifestyle, films, trauma survivors, runners, snowboarding etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, I don’t remember names, dates etc. well. But I’m pretty good at remembering stories about the person and the underlying emotions. That’s how I store information and make connections in my head. And this was the core theme of the book – stories are how we make sense of the universe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love to read. I think I’m more leaning toward a book-addict category than a book-lover. But I don’t understand how the top x takeaways work. Since I mostly have so many from each book and I remember them as stories than bullet points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example – In David Goggins’s Never Finished, he talks about how a wrong and unapproved surgical procedure on his injured knee ended his running career. He wasn’t even informed about this change in procedure after the surgery. David was angry at the doctor but he never once blamed the doctor. If anything, he made a mental note of doing more thorough research going forward and started looking for what other physical activities involve less strain on the knees. From fighting through all the pain and suffering he endured running 100s of km races in extreme environments and often against doctor’s advice to the end of his racing career because of a doctor’s mistake – is just \ud83e\udd2f \ud83d\ude33. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, I would have killed the doctor. But this story serves as a reminder for taking ownership, never give your power away by blaming others, look at the bright side etc.

There are some books that I want to re-read and some which I don\u2019t think I ever will but they were just the read I needed at that particular time. In some odd unexplainable ways, I believe the book chooses me. It\u2019s almost like someone is guiding me and saying at this stage of life, this is the book for you. Like Albus Dumbledore watching over Harry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I don\u2019t have any top 3 takeaways from the 44 books I\u2019ve read this year. Books at core impacts how you think and feel and that in turn influences your actions and helps you evolve. Every now and then, I get reminded of the lessons from the book in my daily life, and suddenly everything makes sense. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One friend saw me reading ‘Made to Stick’ which is the only book where I\u2019ve used an entire packet of sticky notes and then some more. He asked, so what were the top learnings from this book? And I went blank. He asked again, seriously, not even top three or one? I went blank again.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-book","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"vasudha","author_link":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/author\/vasudha\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}