How to read e-books effectively. The experience of a Ukrainian.
How your life can change in one day…
Since childhood, I have always read a lot. This is probably thanks to my father, who collected a large library at home. I have always been fascinated by the shelves of books, their smell, and the shine of gilded letters on the covers.
But the world is changing, technology is powerfully entering our lives and bringing us new opportunities.
For about eight years now, I’ve been reading mostly so-called e-books. From various gadgets—a laptop, tablet, phone, or a special reader that protects your eyesight.
But I still love going to a bookstore, holding them in my hands, turning the pages, and especially smelling the printing. There is a certain nostalgia in this.
The recent events in my country, this terrible war, have definitely made adjustments to my reading process.
In general, a paradox is happening now. Ukraine is probably the most reading nation on earth right now. It’s not just reading the news, although that’s the main part of our reading. We are very hungry for information from the battlefield. From the first day of the war, we have all been constantly on messengers, reading the latest reports of our liberation war.
But Ukrainians, especially civilians, have started reading a lot of different literature, fiction, science, and educational.
This is probably “thanks” to the invaders’ shelling of the infrastructure of our cities.
When you have electricity at home sometimes for three hours a day, reading has become an armor to avoid going crazy and remain human in the midst of all the negativity…
In recent years, I have perfected a reading process for myself that is as effective as possible. Maybe it is already familiar to you, since the most reading part of humanity has gathered here on Medium. But I’ll share it with you anyway.
My main program is Google Play Books.
It works perfectly on iPhones, Android, laptops, and tablets. It is enough to have a Google account.
All the books I find or buy are mostly in Epub format. This is the most common e-book format now. Books in this format are everywhere.
I upload the file to the program and thus create my library. Which, by the way, is immediately synchronized on all your gadgets, and even the last pages you read are synchronized. You can confidently continue reading from another device from the last fragment you read.
But the main feature of this program for me is the ability to highlight and save text. How it works.
Standard text selection is possible in four colors: yellow, red, green and blue.
I divided the colors as follows.
Yellow is an interesting point
Red — an important point that you need to think about and use in your life.
Green — “vitamins for the mind” — humor, motivating moments, interesting statistics, life hacks, etc.
Blue — quotes from famous people and strong statements
You can create these color codings and their meanings for yourself.
And now, after reading the book, you will have a “synopsis” of the work with the color gradation of your notes on Google Drive forever. This will be created automatically in the My Books folder.
You do not need to read the book again, although it is sometimes desirable and welcome, you can review the synopsis and update your memories and thoughts. This is very convenient.
You will not lose the value of what you have read, you have made a concentrate)
This is my method, which I have been using for a long time.
But I would really like to know how you read.
Let’s grow together!
Peace to all!
P.S. Sorry for my English.
