My 7 Ways to Read a Book

Just to keep record of my several ways to read a book

• Think as a detective. I know what the author has said. I then guess/deduce what the author is going to say, or how the story is going to be. I can even build a branched tree to track the story plot space. A tree is a way to handle reality uncertainty by consuming more brain memory space. Uncertainty is not unfriendly …

• Think as if I am going to discover the new knowledge. For example, when I have a physical book, before I turn to a new chapter, I can think that, if I were a physicist in that age, after the former physicists have discovered all the knowledge that I’ve read in the book, what more I can discover? In the end, can I independently discover the knowledge that is going to be recoreded in the new chapter? How to plan the methods … In the end, compare what I got and what is shown by book next; insights reveal by compare.

• This is not a book, but a human artifact of the current age and the mankind history. Suppose I were an alien that have just arrived the earth. Why the human sociaty born the book and that kind of thoughts in it? What is the reason behind the sociaty, the age, and the history, for people to think and write that way? It’s like I were a future archaeologist who happened to digged out that book …

• I’m not reading the book; I’m reading the author. From the book, I try to deduce the inner motivations, thoughts, and psychosocial dynamics of the author. What kind of person he/she is, what is his/her preference, what is his/her personalities, …

• The book content can be decomposed into three aspects: the plain content that is told, the thoughts behind it, and the techniques and structures of how they are expressed. Instead of just reading the plain content, I can extract the later two. Or more specifically, the techniques and structures of expression can be used in my writtings too. Read the skeleton but not the flesh … The pure structure of used techniques is another abstract plot to admire …

• Multi-threaded minds reading. Firstly, I’m reading. The second thread of mine is actively predicting what the book is going to tell, and use that as a buffer to accelerate my reading. The third thread of mine is watching the previous two, and think about what I’m doing, what’s the value, and what to improve. I look forward to know what it feels to have the fourth thread …

• The plain ordinary way to read a book and know its content.

Update 20220731.

• Find and follow the reference links in the article/paper/book. They describe the background knowledge set of the author, and some time reveal even better reading materials. Yet it’s not only to read the article/paper/book, but also to read the generator of the literature. By back deducting the generators, I get order-1, order-2, order-3 etc worlds, that link into the philosophy presence or minds and physical.