Reading Books Incrementally

I love reading books, but I enjoy incremental reading too much to read books, blog entries, etc. in the linear fashion they were intended to be consumed. The negative aspects of linear reading will be covered in another post soon. Until then, to make it easier to read books using Supermemo, I have found this to be particularly helpful:

There are many sites that allow you to create text documents of .epub and .mobi files. Here is one that I have been using: Whoosh.

After I first acquire the epub or mobi file and convert it to a .txt file, I copy and paste 10 or so pages into Supermemo (Too much text slows Supermemo down). I use the "picture article" template so I can put a picture of the cover of the book on the opposite side of the page (I have always been fond of book covers, album covers, etc.). I delete the text that has no value to me, highlight and extract sentences or paragraphs that might contain a flashcard, and keep doing this until I read the end of the text I copied over. After this, I copy another 10 or so pages, and then continue on.

Right now I am reading at least 10 books (Two of which are fiction), and I have thoroughly enjoyed this way of reading. If you haven't tried it, it is a very fun way to read scientific and historical books (Which is what I enjoy reading the most).

To summarize:

-Incremental reading is superior and more fun than traditional reading.

-Convert an acquired epub or mobi file into .txt.

-Only copy 10-15 pages of text at a time to prevent slowing Supermemo down.