How to Read a Book and Actually Remember It

Have you ever read a book and, while reading, thought you understood it, but having read it, when you think of it, there's nothing to recall? The experience when someone discusses a book and, even though you have read it in the past, you can hardly recall any major concepts or arguments? (I know that's just sad, but don't worry, that's not gonna happen again if you can just finish this article. :D)

This is a common issue with comprehension, where you read without comprehension, and as soon as the book is closed, all the ideas go poof! Reading is an art, and without grasping what it requires, all the books that you have been reading pile up to nothing!

If any of my students or a fella is suffering from this predicament, I always share with them my step-by-step method to overcome this and build solid reading comprehension.

Things that you will be needing: Highlighters in three different colors, and a basic understanding of critical thinking (and, of course, a book that you want to really understand).

To really read and understand a text you would be needing two processes.

First Process: For Simple Comprehension

This process will help you simply comprehend the book and remember its major arguments and concepts, enabling you to engage in meaningful discussions. (Next time your friends start discussing a book, you won't be sitting there nodding intelligently and praying nobody asks you what you thought about it. :D )

1. Look for key terms in the first ten pages and highlight them in Red.
2. Look for the definitions of these key terms and highlight them in Blue.
3. Along the way, if you find any quotable line or a passage that you might use during a discussion to construct an argument, highlight it in Green.
4. Now close the book and see if you can recall all the key terms. Write them down and define them in your own words.
5. Open the book and see if you missed any, and if you did, then punish yourself by reading those ten pages again. Keep repeating this punishment until you get all the key terms properly on a page.
6. Try to come up with an acronym for all key terms within a single category that brings up an absurd image. Absurdity is always recallable, believe me. In principle, the more absurd, the more memorable.
7. Now read these ten pages again, and when you stumble upon a highlighted key word, think of creative examples that you might give to make it easier to understand.
8. Repeat this same process with the next ten pages of the book.
9. If you can read a single book following all these steps, your comprehension would be so solid that, next time you pick up a book, all these steps will be happening simultaneously without you knowing. As you close the book upon first reading, you would be able to recall all the major concepts and arguments.

Second Process: For Critical Comprehension

This process produces critical comprehension, and for this, you would be needing a basic understanding of critical thinking. For that, you can either check out my book Critical Thinking Unchained, or start by following this cheatsheet to critical thinking.

Critical Thinking Cheatsheet

True: a statement that is verified to correspond to material reality (i.e., actions and objects in real material world). For instance, cats are quadruped animals. 

False: a statement that is verified to contradict material reality. For instance, cats are biped animals. 

Opinion: a statement that is awaiting verification against material reality. For instance, who will win next election? Does Zeus exist? These questions can only invite opinions or beliefs (Belief is a category of opinion; if you know the difference b/w the words 'knowing' and 'believing', you can understand it too). 

Inductive Argument: identifying a pattern in the sample to induce a conclusion. In princple, as large the sample size so strong will be the conclusion. For instance, I have met 10 indians, and they were friendly which means all indians are friendly. (if sample size is too small as in this example, the induction suffers from fallacy of Hasty Generalization) 

Deductive Argument: applying an accepted principle on set of data to deduce a conclusion. (if principle and premises are valid then conclusion must be valid). For instance, all humans are mortal, John is a human therefore he is mortal too. 

Abductive Argument: an educated guess like ones by Sherlock Holmes out of contextual clues. For instance, you see a marble on the floor and a jar of marbles on the shelf, it's rational to abduct a conclusion here, that this marble belongs to that jar too. 

Four Sources of Knowledge: (i) Observation, (ii) Experience/Experiment, (iii) Collective Accounts of Observations and Experiences, and (iv) Logical Entailments. For instance, a book that you are reading is an account of author's observations and experiences, from which he would be passing arguments, and these arguments can fall into three aforementioned categories. A book of history or an archive is a collective account of observations and experiences of a people from particular time and space; the historian might induce, deduce, or abduct conclusions from those accounts along the way. 

Now, since you have the fundamental knowledge of critical thinking, let's understand the process of critical comprehension.

Always remember that reading is debating and discussing rather than, as often misperceived, a passive act!

1. Take the first individual claim in the book, read through its context, and then question its premises.
2. Does it have as its basis any of the four sources of knowledge?
3. Would you categorize it as an opinion, a truth, a lie, an inductive argument, a deduction, or an abduction?
4. Do your observations, experiences, or rational entailments contradict it? Why?
5. Does the text substantiate the claim with premises, making it an argument, or is it just a claim?
6. Who does this claim favour?
7. Identify unsubstantiated claims and acceptable arguments.
8. Debate these claims.
9. Repeat this same process with each claim and argument in the book.

There can be multiple lenses for critical comprehension. For instance, a Marxist lens would ask a different set of questions from the text; a Feminist lens, a Deconstructive lens, an Anarchist lens, a Postcolonial lens, among others, each has a different set of questions to ask from the text. If interested in trying these different lenses, you can check out our resource on Critical Literary Theory.

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About Mason Carter

Poet • Author • Professor

Hi, I’m an educator and author with a passion for exploring themes of social justice, autonomy, and the ways communities come together. I studied English Literature at Shah Abdul Latif University and the International Islamic University, where I completed my master’s thesis on communes and utopias in literature. Since 2018, I have been a faculty member in the Department of English Language & Literature at Shah Abdul Latif University. Teaching is one of my biggest joys; it keeps me learning and growing every day. Read full biography →