> You seem to suggest that casual reading, while I'm sure shares some spillover benefit, should not be mis-characterized as active study and is closer to entertainment. Do you make a conscious effort to read most things actively?
For the most part, no. I'm OK with a lot of the reading I do being purely for entertainment (yes, even the non-fiction books). To some extent the primary spillover benefit is that even years later, I will vaguely recall that I encountered a concept before and where - so when I need the details, I just go look them up again.
I don't think that reading for entertainment only is such a bad thing. Ok, so I just let a popsci book on $subject wash over me and in a year nearly all of it will be gone from my mind again - but while reading I felt immense joy at the new understanding and information. It positively reinforces curiosity and knowledge-seeking as an activity and and makes me happier. That does help with life.
With a number of books what I do is highlight references to names/concepts/ideas I feel are under-explained or worth some more research on, and then rather than googling them immediately, I finish the book first and then make some time to work through my list of highlights afterwards. It's tedious, but it also effectively forces me to skim through the book and the context of the highlights again. That (slightly) improves my recall later on, but it also often makes me realize the super-structure of the book much more (i.e. how was the author building up their argument over the length of the book, why did they chose to order things in the way they did perhaps, etc.)
