Essay · 2 min read
On reading deeply
Skimming is not reading. Here is a better way to actually absorb what you consume.
We read more words than any generation before us — and understand fewer of them. The feed is a firehose of half-finished thoughts. The book is a slow, deliberate conversation.
The problem with skimming
Skimming feels productive. It is not. You finish with a vague sense of having “seen” something, but nothing you can explain, teach, or act on.
The tell is simple: if you can’t close the page and explain the argument to someone else, you didn’t read it — you only recognized it.
A better way
Three habits changed how much I retain:
- Read with a pencil. Underline, argue in the margins, mark the passages you disagree with.
- Pause at the end of a chapter. Write one sentence — no more — summarizing what the author claimed.
- Re-read the best books. The second pass is where understanding actually begins.
For tracking what I read, I keep a plain note with a single line per book:
Deep Work — Cal Newport — finished — "attention is the new currency"Typography is not decoration
Small details compound. The em dash — like this — creates a pause. The ellipsis… creates anticipation. Curly quotes “like these” read warmer than straight “quotes.”
Small details, multiplied over a thousand sentences, are the difference between a page that feels considered and one that doesn’t.
What I’m reading now
| Book | Author | Status |
|---|---|---|
| The Beginning of Infinity | David Deutsch | Reading |
| Clear Thinking | Shane Parrish | Finished |
| Antifragile | Nassim Taleb | Re-reading |
If you want to go deeper, start with Farnam Street and then read less — but better.