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Ask HN: How are you reading (nonfiction) books/pdfs in 2025?

10 pointsby kanodiaashu5 months ago
Everytime I start reading a book, I feel like uploading it in NotebookLM/ChatGPT to get QA; but these don't let me read in their app, and its not easy to get digital copies of books. I also want to ask questions adjacent to what I'm reading easily; I wonder if there are great apps/hacks people have for this.

14 comments

wannabebarista5 months ago
I read a lot of public domain stuff on Google Books or HathiTrust (usually pdfs). I use a small eink tablet.<p>This was a gamechanger for me. No more eye strain from reading on a monitor.<p>I will occasionally ask Gemini if I&#x27;m confused or need context. Luckily, most models are trained on public domain books!<p>Edit: I also take notes. Most of the time it&#x27;s to connect what I&#x27;m reading with another book&#x2F;paper rather than just summarizing.
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laksmanv5 months ago
I&#x27;m a huge fan of Kindles, though I&#x27;m sure similar e-ink readers are good too.<p>I love it because there&#x27;s no eye strain like an ipad (which I have but no longer use for reading). You can charge it once and it will last for weeks without a recharge. The highlights are amazing - you can highlight key points throughout the book (if you have a kindle scribe you can use the pen to highlight which is a nice experience) and then go online and view all your notes in one place - pretty useful like your own cliff notes. Also if you get kindle, you can get a Libby account with your public library and get basically any book for free (pending hold&#x2F;wait times, but I haven&#x27;t found this to be an issue). When you checkout a book on the libby app it is automatically sent to your kindle, no hassle. I use a smaller kindle for reading in bed, and the scribe for reading at my desk. You can certainly make do with one though. I love that when it&#x27;s not in use, you can set it so it shows the cover of the book you&#x27;re currently reading, nice touch. They&#x27;re fast&#x2F;snappy and work well. The back light and dark mode is great for night time reading. I didn&#x27;t get hype over dark mode, but it really makes sense when you&#x27;re reading at night in the dark less light coming out on your face. If you use more than one like me, it syncs across devices which is nice.<p>Lately, I tried reading a book while listening to the audio book at the same time. This was very immersive and I actually finished the book in one sitting, a great way to absorb information and stay focused, while still being able to highlight.<p>Finally, a lot of people talk about liking having an physical copy of the book as a preference, but I&#x27;ve found the advantages above out weigh it. You can&#x27;t highlight your physical book and then seem them all in one place and quickly go through them. I sometimes get a physical copy for fiction books, but for non-fiction where I want to highlight and apply info, kindle is my choice. And as a fun thing you can do with your kindle - a lot of people find nice cases and decorate with stickers, so there&#x27;s still something new&#x2F;fun if you miss that new book smell ;)
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skydhash5 months ago
I&#x27;ve settled on two modes: Either speed-reading or note taking. If I&#x27;m speed-reading a book and I find something interesting, I screenshot the section. The few books that make the cut, they&#x27;re in my &quot;bookshelf&quot; and slotted for a deep read where I&#x27;m actually trying to learn the stuff it&#x27;s explaining. That&#x27;s when I take notes, think about the concepts, and try to explain them to my friends.
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maxbrydak5 months ago
Readwise reader, mostly for ebooks and PDFs, which makes the most of my reading other than papers or blog posts, for which I use readwise as well.<p>It integrates really well with Obsidian, so all of my highlights are directly put into my second brain.<p>I&#x27;d love to find a FOSS alternative though
broken-kebab5 months ago
Could you elaborate a bit about what exactly do you do with ChatGPT? Because in 2025 I mostly read books like I did a decade before (except e-ink is nicer today). Sometimes I want to search, or use AI to clarify something, but if there are too many cases for it then either the book isn&#x27;t great, or I need to sleep
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bpiche4 months ago
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kavitareader.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kavitareader.com</a><p>Kavita is awesome. I host it on my pc and serve it to my iPad&#x2F;iPhone over a zerotier VPN
billconan5 months ago
I need to read research papers. I just implemented my own paper reader ... <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uU_WeER2PSs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uU_WeER2PSs</a> but it doesn&#x27;t have an AI agent.
WillAdams5 months ago
I listen to public domain books on Librivox while working my day job.<p>I&#x27;ve been downloading some public domain math texts from Project Gutenberg to my Kindle Scribe to read&#x2F;research.
tmaly5 months ago
I like the books app on the ipad. I can select text and copy it over to Obsidian to take with my notes.
lysace5 months ago
Two-page-layout, fullscreen, 43&quot; 4k display, great chair.
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constantinum5 months ago
Non-fiction as audiobooks
throwaway888abc5 months ago
no hacks for me - google books (laptop&#x2F;mobile) and in-app notes
epirogov5 months ago
Mendeley Desktop
chistev5 months ago
Google drive