I've found myself re-reading a book only to have it seem vaguely familiar at first, then, further in, realizing that I'd read it before. I'm glad that this is not unique to me! I'd never been concerned about forgetting parts, or nearly all of a book, but now I'm wondering why that's so.
I’m of the mind that consideration of the subconscious mind is the best way to look at reading or listening. We’re not able to un-read or un-hear anything we are exposed to so what I believe is that all this information is assimilated into the subconscious and returns to our awareness as a personal world view. Chose what you read, but choose wisely.
Writing a review of a book helps in remembering its content, it’s mood and your attitudes and reactions to it. Speaking about it aloud or sharing the main ideas with a friend can also help in consolidating that memory.
I find myself constantly forgetting key details from books, including names of main characters and places; however can normally hold on to my feelings and ideas of the purpose of the novel and the main attitude that it has driven into my understanding of it.
Reading has many facets, one of which might be the rather indescribable, and naturally fleeting, mix of thought and emotion and sensory manipulations that happen in the moment and then fade. How much of reading, then, is just a kind of narcissism—a marker of who you were and what you were thinking when you encountered a text? Perhaps thinking of that book later, a trace of whatever admixture moved you while reading it will spark out of the brain’s dark places.
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I've found myself re-reading a book only to have it seem vaguely familiar at first, then, further in, realizing that I'd read it before. I'm glad that this is not unique to me! I'd never been concerned about forgetting parts, or nearly all of a book, but now I'm wondering why that's so.
I’m of the mind that consideration of the subconscious mind is the best way to look at reading or listening. We’re not able to un-read or un-hear anything we are exposed to so what I believe is that all this information is assimilated into the subconscious and returns to our awareness as a personal world view. Chose what you read, but choose wisely.
Writing a review of a book helps in remembering its content, it’s mood and your attitudes and reactions to it. Speaking about it aloud or sharing the main ideas with a friend can also help in consolidating that memory.
I find myself constantly forgetting key details from books, including names of main characters and places; however can normally hold on to my feelings and ideas of the purpose of the novel and the main attitude that it has driven into my understanding of it.