[FatGuy]

Thanks so much for the replies!

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

Why are you reading those books: are they required for school/work, or are they books that you've been told are classics/good for you/etc.?

As other people said, take notes. If feasible, try to summarize the essential points of a chapter in your own words.

If you are reading these books more out of personal enrichment and a desire for enjoyment, try not to get too bogged down in note-taking.

I do suggest making a list of characters if you are reading fiction. This helped me enormously when I read War and Peace.

I'm reading these books for school but also because I've been told by other people and also by telling myself "these are important" and I just get a lot of anxiety and cannot absorb the material inside the books at all.

Originally Posted by Froide

Responders have provided both a great chuckle (i.e., "stop reading important books") and several pieces of good advice. Several have suggested taking notes. However, you may be wondering how to take notes when reading important material.

I get the impression you're not referring to books assigned for academic or professional training, and you won't be tested on them. Whether that's true or not, it's a fact that various types of reading material require different reading, learning, and note-taking strategies. Therefore, I am providing several resources you might find useful:

*Check out some of the note-taking guides found here
* Review the Critical Reading test-prep guides for the ACT and SAT (which are applicable to everyone, not just test-takers) by SparkNotes and by Gary Gruber (NOTE: all of SparkNotes' books can be read online, free of charge, at www.Sparknotes.com!)
*Read or watch the video of How to Read a Book
*Read How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
*Read summaries and analyses of the books you are finding difficult to read (either because they're dense, boring, or complicated), by such resources as CliffsNotes, enotes.com, SparkNotes, and heck, even Wikipedia
*If you really can't get through an "important" book that you'd like to learn more about, by reading it, then consider watching its play or movie adaptation.

Originally Posted by Nancy Fulda

This is your sticking point right here. The important work was selected for you by someone else: you're reading it out of a sense of duty rather than because it truly interests you.

The sports forums and flashy magazines, in contrast, are topics that snared your interest and convinced you to read even though they have no recognized societal value.

So I think what you're experiencing is perfectly normal. We naturally gravitate to the types of information best suited to our psyche, and tend to remember that information better.

Don't get me wrong! I think it's wonderful to read classic and significant manuscripts, and hope you'll continue doing so. But don't get down on yourself because the learning curve is higher there than on the stuff you've picked out all on your own. I have, quite frankly, forgotten 90% of Les Miserables and nearly 100% of War and Peace. I still think I'm a better person for having read them. These things have a way of sinking into your subconscious.

I'm not sure if it's a "sense of duty" as you say, but more of a feeling that I'm telling myself "it's important" and because it's important I just avoid reading them or if I do actually read the books I don't absorb the material because I keep telling myself "this is important."