What constitutes a difficult book depends on your reading ability. Some measure difficulty based on length; others on the subject. To me, a difficult book depends on readability and subject matter. Regardless of what you deem difficult, here are six tips to help you read challenging nonfiction books.

Tip One: Give the book a quick scan

Before reading the book, give it a quick scan. Start by checking the “Table of Contents” section to see what each chapter explores. Afterward, skim through each chapter to get a general idea of its content. By doing this, you will mentally prepare for what you’re about to read, and nothing new that you learn will be a complete surprise.

Tip Two: Actively engage

Engage actively with the book by highlighting, annotating, and summarizing key concepts, ideas, and chapters. To help you organize essential sections, invest in sticky tabs to mark crucial pages and sections.

• Highlight: keywords, ideas, concepts, and facts.
• Annotate: paraphrase key concepts, ideas, and definitions in a way that you understand best
• Summarize: briefly summarize what you’ve just read at the end of each chapter.

Tip Three: Use additional resources

I used to feel guilty for needing additional resources to help me, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Use resources like videos, podcasts, articles, and research papers to aid your understanding. You can take this one step further by using AI tools like ChatGPT to explain complex concepts and ideas more simply.

Tip Four: Write notes

Every year, I buy a new notebook to jot down all my book notes once I’m done reading. This helps me remember and recall important ideas from each book without skimming through the book itself or rereading it. 

Invest in a notebook or create an organized digital document to store important information learned. This way, in the future, when you want to recall information, you can refer to your notes instead of scavenging through the book to find it. 

The key here is to write your notes in a way that you will best understand them.

Tip Five: Review previous chapters before reading

This is a tip that I learned in university, and it helps me tremendously when I’m reading a difficult book. Before starting a new reading session, I always review the previous 2-3 chapters from my last reading session to refresh my memory.

Example

Reading Session #1: Chapters 1-3

Reading Session #2: Briefly review chapters 1-3 before starting chapter 4

Tip Six: Take it slow

One of the biggest mistakes I made as I transitioned from easy to difficult books was treating the books the same. Difficult books require more time to process and comprehend the information thoroughly. If you rush the reading process, especially with a book whose magnitude is vast, you may need more information, resulting in burnout. That said, I recommend taking your time with the book you’re reading. Aim for a minimum of one chapter a day, never exceeding three.

Conclusion

To become a stronger reader, you’ll need to start reading more difficult books. This may seem daunting initially, but with the right tools and approach, no book will ever be too difficult.