Getting Information from Books

There are people you can buy books for...and there are people who will immediately shelve your book order as decor, glancing fearfully and guiltily in its general direction every so often.

My sister buys good books for her friends, and then they will ask her to interpret the books to answer their questions instead of using the books to extract the information on their own. What the ???

I have seen this too. The book may as well be a stone to some people--who are plenty smart! Is this a personality thing? A generational thing? I have long wondered why some can and some can't obtain a chain of meaningful information out of a book, even when they are curious about the topic.

I think it is a personality thing.  I tend to circle books.  That is, I will read  a few pages here and there in the book.  At some point , if the book eventually grabs my attention, I will read it cover to cover … several times.   As I think about it, I used the same approach during my dating years.  I had to get to know the girl before I asked her out.

I own more books, on more topics, than I'll ever be able to read. I've also given away more than I still own. Like John, I often circle them, coming back, extracting bits and pieces - using them much more often as a reference, than something to sit down and read, cover to cover. But, when I finally do, I absorb them like a sponge, savoring. Non-fiction, which is about 80% of my book collection is about half to 2/3 of what I read. And, my reading habits have changed, over the years - I rarely pull an all-nighter, anymore, but that used to be at *least* a weekly thing.

as humans we are all different. and our brains although biologically the same work differently. an example from school, some people can read a calculus or trigonometry book and pass every exam with an A others no matter how many times they read that book and have a tutor explain it to them still cannot figure out how to do calculus or triginometry. while others can can build a house with nothing more than an axe.  everyone is different