This post isn’t directed towards you or any part of any population. It’s directed towards me. I don’t think you need to write book reports on the books you read. I think I need to.

I’m not going to be writing these to get any kind of traffic or get people to buy books through my Amazon affiliation (although, why wouldn’t I link to them?).

I’m writing these because this is the best way I can remember what I read without rereading books.

Why write book reports?

The other night, I finished Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier. It was a fantastic book. It’s now littered with highlights, notes, and brackets.

All of my books are.

I do this because it helps me find passages that I love. Direct quotes I can’t recall perfectly from memory.

I remembered everything about “Rework” after I read it.

I went to put it away on the bookshelf and pick up the next book to read. I picked up and put down books multiple times trying to make a decision. Finally, I settled on a book I bought in the Columbus Airport. One Thing by Gary Keller and held it in my left hand.

I glanced over to a different shelf and noticed The Master Key to Riches by Napoleon Hill. It was a book my business partner had recommneded to me months ago. I had started reading it but never finished.

I could tell because I had made highlights and notes a quarter of the way through.

I picked it up with my other hand and opened it on top of The One Thing I was carrying.

As I read through my highlights trying to figure out where I left off, something mortifying occurred to me.

I couldn’t remember a damn thing!

I’d highlighted sentences and bracketed paragraphs but had no recollection of the surrounding context.

I do remember this book being a terrible read and I can admit it probably bored me. But before I let myself give up on questioning why I couldn’t remember anything about this book, I looked at some of my other “favorite books” I’ve read.

Two of which being Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.

I remembered a few things from those books but I couldn’t pull any quotes out of my head. On top of that, I couldn’t even remember the different topics On Writing Well covered.

This terrified me. I’m not going to read books over and over again until I get them drilled down. I should be able to read them once and remember most of the key details.

I had an idea

Recently, I had started taking Lean Six Sigma Engineering classes to get my green belt in the field. I’m taking it seriously because I care about what it teaches.

I prove that I care about the subject by the immense amount of notes I’ve taken. Often more notes than what the instructor says or writes.

I’ve noticed my rentention to a lot of these topics has been better than it’s ever been. Including high school and college. I don’t even have to look at my notes. I just remember everything and I’ve been scoring 100% on all my tests.

I figured if I wrote about a book after I read it, it would help me retain a lot more information. Even if it’s just a few more bits and pieces that I was remembering before.

Most people already knew taking notes and writing about things helped retain more information. I’ve never been a note taker and all of that seemed anecdotal to me.

It wasn’t until Lean Six Sigma that I realized just how much I was retaining.

How do I even write book reports?

I haven’t done this since middle school. So I guess the best thing to do is write it as if it were a blog post.

I’m going to break it down and structure it in the same format I always write:

• Introduction
• Why this topic is important
• Specific things about the topic
• Applying the topic to real life
• Summary

I hope I’m not the only one that gets benefit out of writing these. It wouldn’t feel like a complete waste if that were the case… but a waste nevertheless.

So this is how my book reports (book reviews) will be structured in the coming posts:

• Introduction
• Synopsis
• Notable Topics
  • Topic #1
  • Topic #2
  • Topic #3
• How I can apply what I read
• Who I would recommend this book to

I hope this helps

I hope this helps me remember more of what I’ve read in the past. It’s not that I’ve completely forgot. It’s just I need to flip through the book to job my memory.

I don’t wnat to have to jog it for every postive detail I’ve read. I just want to recall it at will or whenever the situation calls for it.

But I also want these book reviews to serve you well too. I want them to be interesting and pique your interest without you not feeling like you don’t need to read the books. As long as you think they’re a good fit for you.

If you have any recommendations for me, put them in the comments below and say a little about why you like that book.