Some books are a complete waste of time to read without retention. For example, there is no value to me in reading and forgetting a technical book on some piece of software that I only use infrequently but need to be reasonably competent with when I do use it. These books I'm reading purely for utility; if I don't gain that utility then reading it was pointless.
At the other end of the scale, I read fiction purely for enjoyment. Attempting to make any notes at all or to memorise what I'm reading would make the process unnecessarily tedious and defeat the purpose of it, while gaining me very little value.
In between these are non-fictional / narrative books which contain useful insights or information which I don't necessarily need for my work but aren't strictly only for entertainment purposes. Examples of this might include biographies or personal development / self help books. With these I'm not interested in exhaustively memorising everything, but neither do I want to completely forget the most valuable points. Here, a hybrid approach works best; perhaps some highlighting and more selective note-taking, with a few key points turned into Anki cards if I feel that I want to retain the information long term.
The problem with the article is that it proposes a single method ("a much more relaxed approach to knowledge consumption") no matter the context, whereas I would argue that you should adapt the method to each book depending on what your goal is in reading it.
At the other end of the scale, I read fiction purely for enjoyment. Attempting to make any notes at all or to memorise what I'm reading would make the process unnecessarily tedious and defeat the purpose of it, while gaining me very little value.
In between these are non-fictional / narrative books which contain useful insights or information which I don't necessarily need for my work but aren't strictly only for entertainment purposes. Examples of this might include biographies or personal development / self help books. With these I'm not interested in exhaustively memorising everything, but neither do I want to completely forget the most valuable points. Here, a hybrid approach works best; perhaps some highlighting and more selective note-taking, with a few key points turned into Anki cards if I feel that I want to retain the information long term.
The problem with the article is that it proposes a single method ("a much more relaxed approach to knowledge consumption") no matter the context, whereas I would argue that you should adapt the method to each book depending on what your goal is in reading it.