I typically “read” in one of four ways.
- Physical Books. This is my favorite tool for what I call deep reading—a reading which requires intense thought, and where note creation and highlighting are trivial. I like to physically engage with the books, including bookmarks, sticky notes, and all. These are books I nearly always tend to keep and include subjects ranging from philosophy to medicine. Usually, I am at a desk, with a notepad available to write down secondary notes for future reference.
- iBooks. I find these most useful for short medical textbooks or board reviews. The iBooks platforms have reasonable highlight features, and expanding the visual figures, especially biochemical pathways, can be quite helpful. References are also easily found. These are great for secondary medical review texts.
- Audiobooks. These are generally restricted to motivational or business books I listen to while exercising (walking or hiking). Examples of some of the books I listen to this way would include any Seth Golden book (most recently The Practice) or any Steven Pressfield non-fiction book (for example, The War of Art). Rarely I will run across a fact or an idea so important while listening to a book I will hit pause and pull out my iPhone to jot down a note, but this is the exception, not the rule.
- The Kindle. This is my favorite way to read novels (usually some quick-reading techno-thriller). I’m in it just for fun. The Kindle is light and easy to hold. It can be used to read just about any novel, anywhere, and in any physical position.
These reading tools are used in parallel. There are certainly some overlaps, but as a general rule, I have one different book active on each of these reading tools at any given time.
And how does this inform my writing?
Well, I think it’s helpful to consider how my writing is going to be physically read.
For example, for a more a book with a more conversational tone, most suitable for audiobooks, I might do my entire first draft using audio dictation. Or for a book with heavy reference content, I will focus on using Ulyssess and MS WORD. And for my (future) best-selling techno-thriller—an answer to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code—I will take a hard look at how my favorite novels physically read on the Kindle!
Happy reading. And happy writing!