Why I Don't Read Physical Books Anymore (and How I Remember What I Read)

 I enjoy reading, but I mostly enjoy nonfiction self-improvement books. For example, my last three books were God and Money, Million Dollar Weekend, and Supercommunicators.

All three are fantastic, with dozens of nuggets I want to remember (101, 97, and 104 nuggets, to be precise). I used to read a book, remember it for a little while, and then its lessons would fade into the background.

But no more.

Kindle

I bought a Kindle Paperwhite in 2013, and it felt magical. Being small and lightweight is nice, but the real perk is the built-in reading light. I love getting books instantly, but the built-in light is still the coolest part. While sleeping in an Indian hostel/camp while hiking in the Himalayas last year, a friend marveled that I could keep reading when it was time to turn off the single bulb in the sleeping quarters. It's such a simple feature, and I love it.

My biggest initial problem with the Kindle was that it didn't show book covers. After a while, all the books started blending together, and I couldn't remember where I read something or the author's name. It's incredible how passively looking at something 30-50 times for 1-2 seconds each time helps information stick.

Thankfully, Amazon eventually fixed my problem by incorporating book covers into the lock screen. (My last request for improvement is the ability to zoom in on graphics, as sometimes the rendering makes them too small to read.)

(side note: I also listen to audiobooks, but only books I don't want to take notes on or highlight. For me, those are biographies and fiction.)

Readwise

In June of 2022, I stumbled upon Readwise, and it's fantastic! The idea is simple: sync your highlights from an eReader, and it'll show you some highlights in a daily email (or the app). Or, manually add any book, and it'll show you popular highlights. You control email frequency and how many highlights are in each email.

The benefit is that it helps you remember what you've read.

Today, one of my 12 highlights was from a book I first read with my mom in 1998 and reread in 2019. Here's the crazy part: in 2019 - before I had Readwise - I highlighted 290 parts of the book!

At the time, I wrote a 4-page summary of the book because I wanted to remember its lessons. It was super helpful at the time, and I still have it saved on my computer, but the last time I opened it was in 2022 (I just looked).

But then today, I got a small reminder:

How cool is that? And it also sparks memories of related passages. Just like seeing a book cover for 1-2 seconds multiple times helps me remember the title and author, these snippets help me remember what I read years ago.

Since getting Readwise, I've used it a lot - 750 days in a row. It's the first or second app I open in the morning.

Physical Books

I like this system so much that I refuse to read paper books. When someone gives me a physical book - and I probably shouldn't admit this - I buy the Kindle version and then give away the physical book!

I figure the point of the gift isn't the book itself, but the knowledge shared by the author.

Though I'll admit, I'm starting to soften my digital-only stance. I'm currently running an experiment of keeping a bookshelf of physical books. My hypothesis is that seeing the books will act as one more memory enhancer and inspiration for other creative work.

My experiment is a little flawed because I read these physical books before buying my Kindle (I added them to Readwise and get popular highlights). So, it might be different to add a book I read digitally, but so far, I like having them in my physical space.

So that's what's working for me right now. If you use a Kindle, I recommend trying Readwise.