I shall review most books I read.

I don't believe in documenting my code. It's just waste of time. I can write more code instead. It does not take a genius to call this bull shit. In the context of reading books, this is not much different from saying I don't have the time to review the books I read. I can read more books instead and finish up my xx books per year goal.

How will reviews help?

• I’ve learnt something interesting from almost all the books I read. I would be extremely happy and thrilled after I finish a book. However a few months later my mind does not retain a lot of those learnings. I believe writing a book review will help me retain more.
• I’m a software engineer and there have been times where I reimplemented my code because it felt weird I when was documenting it. Documenting code makes me write better code. Similarly if I know that I’m going to write a review after reading a book, I believe it forces me to read the book better.
• It will be easier for me to go back in time and see how i felt about a particular book when I read it x years ago. I can see how my thought process evolved over the years.
• While reading a book we skim through the details sometimes; because the content was boring or because we are lazy. Documenting this information can be helpful while evaluating the book and doing a second read.
• It is easier to share your opinion about a book when you already wrote a review; just share the review doc/website URL.

So from now on, I shall review most books I read. I will attempt to be more sincere in this regard for non-fiction books. I plan to write my reviews as Google Docs and if I’am extremely impressed/annoyed with a book, I will consider publishing it in my website.

Review Template

The following questions provide a good starting to review a book.

1. Most books try to make a point. What did the book try to say?
2. What are the most compelling parts of the book?
3. What parts of the book you agree/disagree with?
4. Thoughts about writing style. Did any parts deserve more attention? Was anything stretched too much?
5. Did you not follow any sections? Why was it hard?
6. Did you skip any sections? Why? Do you plan to re-read these sections in the future again?