Reading Archives - from Gnome to Goliath

How to Improve Book Retention

Stop reading non-fiction books only to forget them after you close the last page. Increase your retention by following three simple steps.

Today I am going to teach you how to improve your retention when reading non-fiction books. After all this is the only reason why we read such kinds of books, right?

I have gone over several methods that do not work. From passive reading (i.e., I just read the book and then I take the next one), to highlighting quotes and important passages, and all the way to extracting my highlights and creating a mind map organized by chapter. But when I read a great book like Adam Grant’s Think Again, I will find myself unable to generate a thoughtful review about it or remember even one important idea from the book.

Here, I will show you my latest method for improving retention. It is based on the book How to Take Smart Notes (link to Goodreads).

Tin’s List of Best Books 2021

This is a list of the best books which I have read in 2021 divided into six genres.

Here we are at the end of 2021 and here I am compiling my traditional list of the best books which I read in 2021. This year was … interesting … again. We all hoped that the global pandemic crisis will be over by the end of the year, but it is not. Still, I am ending the year on a hopeful note and I hope that all of you will be able to do so as well.

My reading focus this year was what I called financial education. I finally decided to take my personal finances, budgeting, and investing into my own hands and read a bunch of books on this topic. I also concentrated on my and my family’s health, spirituality, and well-being. And I have some book recommendations in that direction. Finally, I continued exploring the topic philosophy and I continued reading a wide variety of books on the movements that speak to me.

Just like last year, I have broken down my recommendations into genres. And just like every time, if I only inspire one of you to pick up one extra book, this will mean success!

This is the fifth list in a row. These are my previous articles on this topic: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017. You can go to my Goodreads profile to take a look at all the books that I’ve read.

Tin’s List of Best Books 2020

A list of the best books I’ve read in 2020 which are relevant to the topics in my blog – personal and professional growth, optimization and productivity.

Below is the list of the best books that I read in 2020. What a year has 2020 been! I mean did anybody see this coming back in January? I must admit, just like most of the people in the world, I had read the news about COVID-19 coming from Asia in Dec 2019. And, just like anybody else, I dismissed them easily. What a good lesson! But anyway, if there was anything positive out of 2020 it was that I got to spent a lot of time with my family. I hope that a lot of people could say the same.

And … I spent a lot of time reading. I broke my previous record of 30 books and I read 35 books in 2020 (woot!) I also read more than 10.000 pages for a second year in a row. I read early in the morning before the working-from-home madness would start. I read on the weekend during the quiet time.

In this article, I listed the best books that I read in 2020. This time I’ve broken the list down into genres. Not always the genre that the authors picked when they published their book, but the genre that I would assign to it.

This is my forth year in a row. These are my previous articles on this topic: Best books 2019, Best books 2018, Best Books 2017.

Gil’s List of Best Books 2019 (Non-business)

A list of the best books I’ve read in 2019 that are “non-business”. Covering a collection of spirituality, wisdom, philosophy, and psychology topics.

Once again, I would like to share my list of best books in 2019. You can find my list for 2018: here.

I concentrated on non-business books. Tin’s list of best books of 2019 can be found here.

Tin’s List of Best Books 2019

A list of the best books I’ve read in 2019 that are relevant to the topics in my blog – personal and professional growth, optimization and productivity.

2019 is almost over and it is time for my annual list of the best books that I’ve read this year. I spent relatively more time writing than reading (stay tuned for more info in 2020), but I still managed to hit my official goal of 22 and my stretch goal of 30. I also managed to hit a fun milestone that I set for myself – 10.000 pages in total (10.107 pages, which is about 1.000 less than my all-time record). The change this year is that I started commuting with a car to work which reduced my opportunity to read in transit, but I started arriving earlier and I could use the first hour of the work day for reading and writing.

Previous articles: Best books 2018, Best Books 2017.

In this article, I listed the five books that I would recommend out of my year’s selection (and one bonus). If you are interested, this is a link to my Goodreads account (link) where I diligently summarize my reading experience.