Looking for a quick but useful read for the holiday? You might want to check out Steve Leveen’s book The Little Guide to Your Well Read Life: How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life from Your Books. It is a quick read, but loaded with practicial advice on improving your quality and quantity of reading. I’ve been using some of Steve’s suggestions for some time (for example, having a hard copy of the audio book you are listening to so you can refer to specific passages, tables, etc.). Anyone who is an avid reader will get more than one useful tip out of this book. Highly recommended.
Here are my notes:
Leveen, Steve. (2005). The little guide to your well-read life: How to get more books in your life and more life from your books. Delray Beach, FL: Levenger Press.
Leveen rediscovered reading in his 30s. spent time figuring out how busy people were able to fit books into their lives .p. 5 notes that many booklovers are not bookworms but are active and engage books and life with equal passion. notes Churchill, t. Roosevelt, Macarthur, etc.
Focus is on your well read life! Only you can decide that.
Suggestions from Leveen:
-develop a candidates list of books .p. 13 .these are candidates for your attention rather than obligations.
-develop a library of candidates .. books you plan to read .get books you plan to read and hold them for the right moment .one idea that Leveen uses is a for when I go there shelf books about places that he wants to go to ..there is no obligation to read your books in the library of candidates ..
p. 21 on advice friends .always ask why they recd the book .not always the best way to get book suggestions ..
p. 30 The point of reading is not reading but living. Reading helps you live with greater appreciation, keener insight and heightened emotional awareness.
-p. 33 reading should be active and engaging
.a debate w/ the author
.
– advice on how to read
..review table of contents, index, etc.
is the book reprinted, etc.
. Read some introductory and concluding paragraphs from each chapter
should contain sum of major points.
p. 36 rule of thumb on when to give up on a book .after 50 pages if still no interest or connection
p. 38 how to retain more of what you read .review book almost immediately after finishing it .easier if youve marked passages, etc. .. may want to write longer notes ..keep reviewing notes from time time .may want to keep just finished books on a special shelf and revisit them .think of questions for each section of a text book or chapter .
Audio books . He also buys a hard copy of the text to mark up, etc.
[...] For Extension professionals that are on the go, Mark’s article will be really useful and inspirational. There is never enough time, so pick wisely. See also my book notes on Steve Leveen’s The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life. And do what else Mark suggests – turn of the TV. Or at least use a DVR to record shows and time-shift your viewing to a better time for you. [...]