Edited based on the outline kindly provided by Gram_Stone, whom I thank.

There is a skill of reading and thinking which I haven't learned so far: of looking for implications as one goes through the book, simply putting it back on shelf until one's mind has run out of the inferences, perhaps writing them down. I think it would be easier to do with books that [have pictures]

- invite an attitude (like cooking shows or Darwin's travel accounts or Feynman's biography: it doesn't have to be "personal"),

- are/have been regularly needed (ideally belong to you so you can make notes on the margins),

- are either outdated (so you "take it with a grain of salt" and have the option of looking for a current opinion) or very new,

- are not highly specialized,

- are well-structured, preferably into one- to a-few-pages-long chapters,

- allow reading those chapters out of order*,

- (make you) recognize that you do not need this knowledge for its own sake,

- can be shared, or at least shown to other people, and talked about, etc. (Although I keep imagining picture albums when I read the list, so maybe I missed something.)

These features are what attracts me to an amateur-level Russian plant identification text of the 1948.** It was clearly written, and didn't contain many species of plants that the author considered to be easily grouped with others for practical purposes. It annoyed me when I expected the book to hold certain information that it didn't (a starting point - I have to notice something to want to think). This is merely speculation, but I suspect that the author omitted many of the species that they did because the book was intended to convey agricultural knowledge of great economic importance to the Soviet population of the time (although some included details were clearly of less import, botanists know that random bits trivia might help recognizing the plant in the field, which established a feeling of kinship - the realisation that the author's goal was to teach how to use the book, and how to get by without it on hand). I found the book far more entertaining to read when I realized that I would have to evaluate it in this context, even though one might think that this would actually make it more difficult to read. I was surprised that something as simple as glancing at a note on beetroot production rates could make me do more cognitive work than any cheap trick that I'd ever seen a pedagogical author try to perform purposefully.

There may be other ways that books could be written to spontaneously cause independent thought in their audiences. Perhaps we can do this on purpose. Or perhaps the practice of making inferences beyond what is obviously stated in books can be trained.

* which might be less useful for people learning about math.

** Ф. Нейштадт. Определитель растений. - Учпедгиз, 1948. - 476 с. An identification key gives you an algorithm, a branching path which must end with a Latin name, which makes using it leisurely a kind of game. If you cannot find what you see, then either you've made a mistake or it isn't there.

I enjoy reading popular-level books on a wide variety of subjects, and I love getting new book recommendations. In the spirit of lukeprog's The Best Textbooks on Every Subject, can we put together a list of the best popular books on every subject?

Here's what I mean by popular-level books:

• Written very well and clearly, preferably even entertaining.
• Does not require the reader to write anything (e.g., practice problems) or do anything beyond just reading and thinking, except perhaps on very rare occasions.
• Cannot be "heavy" reading that requires the reader to proceed slowly and carefully and/or do lots of heavy thinking.
• Can be understood by anyone with a decent high school education (not including calculus). However, sometimes this requirement can be circumvented, if the following additional criteria are met:
  • There must be other books on this list that cover all the prerequisite information.
  • When you suggest the book, list any prerequisites.
  • There shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 prerequisites.

Quick summary: "Hidden rationalists" are what I call authors who espouse rationalist principles, and probably think of themselves as rational people, but don't always write on "traditional" Less Wrong-ish topics and probably haven't heard of Less Wrong.

I've noticed that a lot of my rationalist friends seem to read the same ten blogs, and while it's great to have a core set of favorite authors, it's also nice to stretch out a bit and see how everyday rationalists are doing cool stuff in their own fields of expertise. I've found many people who push my rationalist buttons in fields of interest to me (journalism, fitness, etc.), and I'm sure other LWers have their own people in their own fields.

So I'm setting up this post as a place to link to/summarize the work of your favorite hidden rationalists. Be liberal with your suggestions!

Another way to phrase this: Who are the people/sources who give you the same feelings you get when you read your favorite LW posts, but who many of us probably haven't heard of?

Here's my list, to kick things off:

• Peter Sandman, professional risk communication consultant. Often writes alongside Jody Lanard. Specialties: Effective communication, dealing with irrational people in a kind and efficient way, carefully weighing risks and benefits. My favorite recent post of his deals with empathy for Ebola victims and is a major, Slate Star Codex-esque tour de force. His "guestbook comments" page is better than his collection of web articles, but both are quite good.
• Doug McGuff, MD, fitness guru and author of the exercise book with the highest citation-to-page ratio of any I've seen. His big thing is "superslow training", where you perform short and extremely intense workouts (video here). I've been moving in this direction for about 18 months now, and I've been able to cut my workout time approximately in half without losing strength. May not work for everyone, but reminds me of Leverage Research's sleep experiments; if it happens to work for you, you gain a heck of a lot of time. I also love the way he emphasizes the utility of strength training for all ages/genders -- very different from what you'd see on a lot of weightlifting sites.
• Philosophers' Mail. A website maintained by applied philosophers at the School of Life, which reminds me of a hippy-dippy European version of CFAR (in a good way). Not much science, but a lot of clever musings on the ways that philosophy can help us live, and some excellent summaries of philosophers who are hard to read in the original. (Their piece on Vermeer is a personal favorite, as is this essay on Simon Cowell.) This recently stopped posting new material, but the School of Life now collects similar work through The Book of Life. 

I'm having trouble understanding the process I should use when I am considering new models as they might apply to old data, like memories. This is primarily when reasoning with respect to qualitative models, like those that come out of development psychology, business, or military strategy. These models can be either normative or descriptive, but the big trait that they all seem to share is that they were all conceptualized with reference to the inside view more than the outside view - they were based on either memories or intuition, so they will have a lot of implicit internal structure, or they will have a lot of bullshit. Re-framing my own experiences as a way of finding out whether these models are useful is thus reliant on system one more than system two. Unfortunately now we're in the realm of bias.

My concrete examples of models that I am evaluating are (a) when I am attempting to digest the information contained in the "Principles" document (as discussed here) and for which situations the information might apply in; (b) learning Alfred Adler's "individual psychology" from The Rawness, which also expands the ideas and (c) the mighty OODA loop.

When I brought up the OODA loop during a meetup with the Vancouver Rationalists I ended up making some mistakes regarding the "theories" from which it was derived, adding the idea of "clout" to my mental toolkit. But it also makes me wary that my instinctive approach to learning about qualitative models such as this might have other weaknesses.

I asked at another meetup, "What is the best way to internalize advice from books?" and someone responded with thinking about concrete situations where the idea might have been useful. 

As a strategy to evaluate the truth of a model I can see this backfiring. Due to the reliance on System One in both model structuring and model evaluation, hindsight bias is likely to be an issue, or a form of Forer effect. I could then make erroneous judgements on how effectively the model will predict an outcome, and use the model in ineffective ways (ironically this is brought up by the author on The Rawness). In most cases I believe that this is better than nothing, but I don't think it's good enough either. It does seem possible to be mindful of the actual conceptual points and just wait for relevance, but the reason why we reflect is so that we are primed to see certain patterns again when they come up, so that doesn't seem like enough either.

As a way of evaluating model usefulness I can see this go two ways. On one hand, many long-standing problems exist due to mental ruts, and benefit from re-framing the issue in light of new information. When I read books I often experience a linkage between statements that a book makes and goals that I have, or situations I want to make sense of (similar to Josh Kaufman and his usage of the McDowell's Reading Grid). However, this experience has little to do with the model being correct.

Here are three questions I have, although more will likely come up:

• What are the most common mistakes humans make when figuring out if a qualitative model applies to their experiences or not?
• How can they be worked around, removed, or compensated for?
• Can we make statements about when "informal" models (i.e. not specified in formal language or not mappable to mathematical descriptions other than in structures like semantic webs) are generally useful to have and when they generally fail?
• etc.

I'm looking to build up a “tool-box” of strategies/techniques/habits for reading non-fiction effectively and efficiently.

 I’ve already posted on this topic; below, I’ve tried to distill/summarize some of strategies shared by Less Wrong users and those contained in the resources they recommended.  Thanks to those who contributed.   

 As far as I know, the strategies below are not supported by a research/experimental literature.  If you know of any such evidence, please link to it. 

 I know that there are many people on Less Wrong who read (and mentally integrate!) incredible amounts.  I’m hoping more users will contribute to this post.  I welcome any additional strategies/habits in the comments.     

Please feel free to comment on the structure/writing of the post, and if you think it’s a topic worthy of being posted on the main page. 

I’ve tried to break strategies down into things you should do before, during, and after reading, but I think some strategies are applicable across these divisions.

Before Reading

-Consider purpose

-are you looking for specific skill, broadening general knowledge

 -Generate a question, if you can’t yet formulate a question, follow your interests

 -Read selectively

            -ask good readers to explain the thesis of a book, reevaluate your interest in a text   

            -select books that are frequently cited in bibliographies of texts related to your topic of interest

            -read the Wikipedia page, gauge interest

 -Assemble reading materials

-Create a bibliography for the topic of interest  

-Quickly inspect the books (author, table of contents, index, Wikipedia page), as you consider the question “does this book deserve a lot of time and attention?”    

-Select a few texts to read closely (though you won’t necessarily read them cover to cover)

  -remove distractions (people, websites, wear noise canceling headphones)

 -Make reading enjoyable

            -when possible, read books you find inherently enjoyable  

            -read when energy levels are high

            -open to a random page and see if you like the author’s voice before extensive reading

            -set time aside, and set time limits to avoid fatigue/reading without comprehension

During Reading

-learn as much as you can before you read the text in earnest

            -research author’s bio, biases, intellectual context

            -identify genre, consider genre conventions

            -scan table of contents/index for key words and concepts; study unfamiliar items

            -book’s thesis

            -identify the question the book purports to answer

 -Prevent boredom

            -mind map concepts (http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)

            -visualize/anthropomorphize to increase vividness/memorability of concepts you have trouble with

            -make predictions about the book’s content, the way the author will argue for the thesis, check for accuracy of these predictions

            -write out how what you read connects or diverges from your current understanding of the topic

 -summarize the text in small chunks to monitor understanding

            - restate the argument/evidence from the past three page 

-explain how the section relates to the primary thesis                                

 -depending on your purpose, just read until you find what you need to know

 -note what you don’t understand, for further review or reading, or immediate study if necessary

 -don’t read what you already know; skip a section if you already have it down

 -authors repeat things, skip this if you got it the first time

 -recreate the author’s argument thus far (I’m halfway through the book, this is the argument so far…)

 -take notes on the structure of the book, the concepts in the book, and how the book relates to other books

After Reading

-Spaced repetition of ideas/concepts (don’t cram)

 -discuss what you’ve read with an expert (or someone knowledgeable)on the topic

 -seek to understand (recreate an argument in good faith, and grasp its’ (perhaps flawed) logic) before you disagree

 -you don’t need to have an opinion on a book; it’s ok not to understand or not to have enough background to make an informed claim 

 -read other books on the topic and try to identify the relationships between the various arguments and claims you find about a subject

 -teach someone else the material

 -do exercises (if the book contains them)

 -summarize the thesis

 -walk through author’s arguments

 -relate thesis to background knowledge/other texts

 -explain how this author’s thesis stands relates to that of other authors who’ve written on the topic

Sources

Most of the ideas I’ve outlined  above, and the sources I’ve listed below come from the first post I made on the topic: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/imr/please_share_your_reading/ Thanks to those who contributed to that discussion. 

 Summaries of How to Read a Book, Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren:

 http://sachachua.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20120306-visual-book-notes-how-to-read-a-book.png

 http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-book/

 http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/tag/mortimer-adler/

 http://www.oxfordtutorials.com/How%20to%20Read%20a%20Book%20Outline.htm

 http://www.thesimpledollar.com/review-how-to-read-a-book/

 http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/06/17/how-to-read-a-book/

Other Sources

 http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/morebooks

 http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/05/chase-your-reading.html

 http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf

 http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/i9p/improving_enjoyment_and_retention_reading/

 http://violentmetaphors.com/2013/08/25/how-to-read-and-understand-a-scientific-paper-2/

I've just finished my finals, and, after six years of college, I am faced with this fact: I have accumulated one heck of a lot of books, most of which I haven't read yet.

An app, or at the very least an algorythm, on how to manage them, make a reading list, and go about reading them, is something I really wish for, but I have no idea how to approach this problem in a time-efficient, productive way, and I wouldn't want to reinvent the wheel.

Do any of you have the same problem? What are your solutions?

The main post will be gradually updated and amended as the discussion progresses.

EDIT: For Mac Users, it appears that Delicious Library is a great solution. While looking for alternatives, I found this web app, libib, which seems very promising.

EDIT 2: I've spent most of the day cataloguing all of my stuff on libib, which is incredibly efficient... as long as the ISBN is readily-recognized. This doesn't work so well with rarer books and older books, but they're a small enough minority that I can delcare a smashing success.

1. Step 1 was making a list of all available books.
2. Step 2 is going to be applying the Universal Decimal System,
3. Step 3 will be Establishing a

• Reading List and a
• List of What's Already Read and a
• List of What Will Probably Never Be Read

Despite a glut of reading recommendation engines, I still find that I rely on personal recommendations for 90% of the books that I read. Given that, I thought it might be useful to try to compile a list of prolific recommenders - people who provide a large number of reliable book recommendations.

I'll start off with the two obvious ones, Tyler Cowen and Cosma Shalizi. The LW/OB group of Eliezer, Robin Hanson, and Michael Vassar also provide useful recommendations (though much less frequently).

Who else can reliably recommend a good book?

Recently, I've collapsed (ascended?) down/up a meta-learning death spiral -- doing a lot less of reading actual informative content, than figuring out how to manage and acquire such content (as well as completely ignoring the antidote). In other words, I've been taking notes on taking notes. And now, I'm looking for your notes on notes for notes.

What kind of scientific knowledge, techniques, and resources do we have right now in the way of information management? How would one efficiently extract useful information possible out of a single pass of the source? The second pass? 

The answers may depend on the media, and the media might not be readily apparent. Example: Edward Boyden, Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab, recommends recording in a notebook every conversation you ever have with other people. And how do you prepare yourself for the serendipity of a walk downtown? I know I'm more likely to regret not having a notebook on hand than spending the time to bring one along.

I'll conglomerate what I remember seeing on the N-Back Mailing List and in general: I sincerely apologize for my lack of citation.

Notes

• I'm on the fence about Shorthand as a note-taking technique, given the learning overhead, but I'm sure that the same has been said for touch-typing. It would involve a second stage of processing if you can't read as well as you write, but given the way I have taken notes (... "non-linearly"...), that stage would have to come about anyway. The act of translation may serve as a way of laying connective groundwork down.
• Livescribe Pens are nifty for those who write slowly, but they need to be combined with a written technique to be of any use (otherwise you're just recording the talk, and would have to live through it twice without any obvious annotation and tagging).
• Cornell Notes or taking notes in a hierarchy may have been the method you were taught in high school; it was in mine. The issue I have had with this format is that I found it hard to generate a structure while listening to the teacher at the same time.
• Mind-Mapping.
• Color-coding annotations of text has been remarked to be useful on Science Daily.

• Speed Reading Techniques  or removing sub-vocalization would seem to have benefits.
• Once upon a time someone recommended me the book, "How to Read a Book". Nothing ground-breaking -- outline the author's intent, the structure of his argument, and its content. Then criticize. In short, book reverse-engineering.

• Spaced Repetition. I'm currently flipping through the thoughts of  Peter Wozniak, who seems to have made it his dire mission to make every kind of media possible Spaced Repetition'able. I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on incremental reading or  video; also, how to possibly translate the benefits of SRS to dead-tree media, which seems a bit cumbersome.

(I've also heard a handful of individuals claim that SRS has helped them "internalize" certain behaviors, or maybe patterns of thought, like Non-Violent Comunication or Bayes Theorem... any takers on this?)

• Wikis, which seem like a good format for creating social accountability, and filing notes that aren't note-carded.  But what kind of information should that be?
• Emotionally charged stimuli, especially stressful, tends to be remembered to greater accuracy.
• Category Brainstorming.Take your bits of knowledge, and organize them into as many different groups as you can think of, mixing and matching if need be. Sources for such provocations could include Edward De Bono's "Lateral Thinking" and Seth Godin's "Free Prize Inside", or George Polya's "How to Solve It". I'm a bit ambivalent of deliberately memorizing such provocations -- does it get in the way of seeing originally? -- but once again, it could lay down the connective framework needed for good recall.
• Mnemonics to encode related information seems useful.

We've already had a lengthy (and still active) thread attempting to address the question "What are the best textbooks, and why are they better than their rivals?". That's excellent, but no one is going to post there unless they're prepared to claim: Textbook X is the best on its subject. But surely many of us have read many texts for which we couldn't say that but could say "I've read X and Y, and here's how they differ". A good supply of such comparisons would be extremely useful.

I propose this thread for that purpose. Rules:

• Each top-level reply should concern two or more texts on a single subject, and provide enough information about how they compare to one another that an interested would-be reader should be able to tell which is likely to be better for his or her purposes.
• Replies to these offering or soliciting further comparisons in the same domain are encouraged.
• At least one book in each comparison should either
  • be a very good one, or at least
    
  • look like a very good one even though it isn't.

If this gets enough responses that simply looking through them becomes tiresome, I'll update the article with (something like) a list of textbooks, arranged by subject and then by author, with links for the comments in which they're compared to other books and a brief summary of what's said about them. (I might include links to comments in Luke's thread too, since anything that deserves its place there would also be acceptable here.)

See also: magfrump's request for recommendations of basic science books; "Recommended Rationalist Reading" (narrower subject focus, and without the element of comparison).