A：我有很多朋友平时想买点书看、想学习，但问题是他们一般读个两到三章就不读了，他们会为此感到非常内疚，也不会买另外的书看，因为他们想把前面这本书先看完。这就是我们从小到大被灌输的理念，做事要善始善终。我感觉大家到现在还是觉得读书是一个线性的事情。 B: W

A: I have so many friends who want to buy books and want to learn. But the problem is, they buy a book, they start it, they get two or three chapters in, and then they stop reading.1 And then they feel bad that they’ve stopped reading. They don’t pick up another book because they know they want to finish this book. We’ve been taught that once we start something, we have to finish it. I think that so often we view reading as this linear thing.
B：读书是线性的是什么意思?不瞒你说，你说的这种情况我也碰到过，经常是每年年末的时候下决心，新年每个月要读多少本书，做计划做得很好，但实际情况是计划每次都落空，一年到头，一本都没看完。
A: What I meant by reading being a linear thing is that most people believe we have to read cover to cover whereas I hold a different view of reading. When I think of reading a book, I would ask myself the following questions: What information do I need out of this book? Is that an entertainment read? Do I need to read from start to finish? Is it a read where I’m comparing different views on a similar problem, especially across non-fiction? If I am comparing and contrasting two or three different authors’ argumentation or views on a particular subject, I might not need to read the whole book but a chapter to get everything out of that book.
B：那我有点理解你的意思了，也就是说阅读应该根据自己的目的来决定阅读方法。
A: Exactly, the books are there to serve you. The book is your property. You don’t have to feel bad about putting down a book. It’s the author’s job to pull you into the book. It’s your job to extract what you need out of the book. And I think you can just read the table of contents, the introduction, or maybe just the conclusion, and skim a little bit to extract what you need.
B：但是如果只是浮光掠影地读书，感觉根本学不到什么知识啊。
A: That’s not true. The common reason for most people to read is skill development2. For example, you want to learn about leadership, then the right way is to narrow down the aspect of leadership, which is much more beneficial from a learning perspective. For instance, you would want to learn how to lead a small team for the first time or how to hold team meetings, or use other methods to break it down, and then hone in on this particular category. Pick up a bunch of leadership books, but read just for those specific categories across the books.