Serious Reading:

Josh Zlatkus:

"I cannot read seriously without a pencil and highlighter at the ready; I cannot learn from a book that isn’t mine to mark."

"What do I mark when the book is mine and I’ve sat down, with intention, to read it? Important passages. Then, sometime after the book is finished—it could be days or years—I return to it and copy those passages into my journal. Once copied, I paste them into a second document created for the purpose of searching. That document currently lives in Obsidian, which I might one day delete—hence the duplication in my journal. Plus, I like being able to look back and know when—roughly, of course—I was reading what.

I’ve long mulled whether to continue this practice."

"I’ll often get into “grooves” of either highlighting much or highlighting little, as if the highlighter must overcome a kind of inertia to start, or carries a momentum that only outside friction can halt. This groove might be motivated by a deep—and mostly unconscious—desire for consistency. Similar to how a referee might strive (albeit with more intention) to uphold the standard he set early in a game, perhaps I want to uphold the level of highlighting I set early in a book. So, one set of factors shapes my early markings (say, how captivating I find the text) and another governs those that follow (say, a desire for consistency)."

"The above notwithstanding, I will traditionally mark more at the beginning of a book than at the end, as well as at the beginning of a reading session than at the end. This I attribute to the unremarkable tendency of enthusiasm, interest, and energy to wane over time. I am simply more eager to get into a new book than continue through an old, more excited to start a reading session than persist. Caffeine might also play a role, given that I usually begin reading within the window of its greatest effect—during which time I am nearly giddy with ideas and the movement of my bowels."