addprogrammer

jsph,

You can use your computer to record and beat the battery problem. If you have a laptop and can plug it in you have portability too.

Incidently, I've used your solution and it is not without problems.

Recording the read is a very good way to slow our brains down enough to parse the info. The problem with recording the entire text comes in when you go to review. My experience has been understanding takes place during the review.

Try a little experiment. Try recording just the key thoughts in each meaningful section. That may be a paragraph, a subhead or an entire chapter depending on complexity and how much you already know about the subject.

What works best for me is to jot the key thoughts in the margins. Most books for nerds have lots of marginal space but some don't. For the latter I use notepad for my notes and then paste (literally scotch tape) my notes into the book.

Why lowly notepad and not Word or some other high end word processor? No bells and whistles to divert my attention.

The active ingredient for me at least is to somehow interact with the read.

Bob

PS Another factor to keep in mind that different subject require different study methods. For example, reading/recording a book on math would be a total waste of my time. My last math book was analytic geometry. I had to work out the examples or nada went into the ol' brain. Same holds true with languages whether computer or spoken.