Comments on: Effective Reading Strategies and The Bottom-Line Book Club

By: Do You Read 6-10 Books Each Month?

Do You Read 6-10 Books Each Month? — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 08:34:47 +0000

[...] Gilkey does. I just listened to him talk with Cath Duncan about effective reading and learning strategies. Download the recording and take a listen — it’s great stuff, especially if you want to [...]

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:05:51 +0000

I’m glad this helped.

Is it time for you to go through your books and decide what NOT to read? It’ll probably be a welcome change from the overlong list of stuff that you have to read.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:33:21 +0000

What a great discussion! I’m glad I stumbled on this. I’ve always thought I had a problem retaining info that I read, but now I see I may just have the wrong approach – and that it’s not bad to have to re-read something, and that not everything on my shelf is something that I’m required to read. *whew!*

By: November & December Roundup « Mine Your Resources

November & December Roundup « Mine Your Resources — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:32:28 +0000

[...] Effective Reading And the Bottom-line Bookclub posted at Productive Flourishing [...]

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:46:58 +0000

Great question, Bec!

I get my reads from a few sources:

I chase footnotes and references from the books and materials I’m already reading.
I talk to a lot of people, and they tell me about great reads. Normally, if a few people tell me that it’s good, it goes on the list – assuming it’s relevant to something I want to learn more about.
I do a bit of trend-watching to see what people are reading and talking about.

When I come across a book that I haven’t heard from these sources, I’ll normally skim the reviews on Amazon. It’s pretty rare that I buy a crappy book and much more common that I’ll buy too many good books at once. I’m thinking my Kindle will help with the latter.

I tend not to have a structured approach to what’s on my active reading list. If I’m reading too many books at once, I’ll slow the pace. If I don’t want to read anything else about a particular topic, I’ll let it go cool. At the same time, if something is really interesting me, then I’ll start reading another book on that topic when I’m done with the first one.

By: Rebecca Leigh

Rebecca Leigh — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:04:08 +0000

Enjoyed the interview Charlie!

I was wondering how you go about gathering your list of potentially good reads – as in the list from which you choose what is most interesting / useful / suitable to your purpose.

Do you read reviews in the paper? Online? Look for any new release? Pay attention to Top 100 or Bestseller lists?

I guess I’m asking whether you rely completely on your own filtering to choose from the staggering number of books available, or whether you use other sources to help you hone in on stuff that could be good.
.-= Rebecca Leigh´s last blog ..Failure to launch (when business websites get stuck) =-.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:53:24 +0000

I’m glad to hear that this podcast helped! I teeter the line you’re talking about, too, and learning to let go of some of the pressures about how much and what I should be reading has helped considerably, and as soon as the overwhelm comes up, I know what questions I need to start asking.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:51:44 +0000

I hadn’t heard of them, but I checked them out. It seems like a good deal, but I should note that the BLBC is different in that it’s not “Cliff’s notes” in that sense. But, wow, there are a lot of Philosopher’s notes and they’re very reasonably priced. Thanks for sharing with us!

By: Cath Duncan

Cath Duncan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:56:01 +0000

Hey Charlie,

Thanks for your kind review and sharing the BLBC with your readers, and for your fantastic contribution to the BLBC in sharing your thoughts on Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind – I so enjoyed doing the interview with you, and I’ve since had great feedback from members on your interview.

Rock on,
Cath
.-= Cath Duncan´s last blog ..How To Do Effective Self-Directed Learning =-.

By: Mytili

Mytili — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:07:31 +0000

Hi Charlie–I’ve been reading your blog for some time now, and I just wanted to say how much I appreciated this podcast. Reading is quite possibly my favorite thing to do, but information anxiety is simultaneously my biggest challenge–it was so helpful hearing how you prioritize and organize your approach to reading. Thanks for the intro to the Bottom-line Book Club, too–what a smart concept!

–Mytili