Use caseRead
Read a book and end up with notes you can use
A note that states what the book argues, what it rests on and where you disagreed — each point attached to its passage, so a year later you can check yourself instead of trusting a summary you no longer remember writing.
- You start with
- One non-fiction book with an argument that you genuinely intend to read — an EPUB, or a PDF with real text in it.
- Time
- However long the book takes, plus about twenty minutes at the end.
- Your part
- The reading, and the deciding: which margin notes to keep, which to delete.
What you'll end up with
- A Markdown note: what the book is most worth reading for, what to carry forward, its biggest doubts, how it connects to what you have read.
- Every point attached to the passage it came from.
- The book itself marked up — your highlights and the margin notes you kept, anchored where they belong.
This is not a “read it for me” workflow. If you want the conclusions without reading, ask a question about the book instead.
How to take notes from a book you can still use next year, step by step
Put the book in your folder and open it.
YouNo import. If you keep books in a Calibre library or a Dropbox folder, point at that folder and they are all there.
Pick the guide lens.
YouChoosing a lens starts a pass and decides what the margin is for. The guide marks what a busy expert would stop for. Review, critique and study read the same text for other jobs — judging it, arguing with it, learning it.
Start the pass, then read normally.
MindMaxAnnotations appear chapter by chapter in the margin while you read. You are reading with a second reader, not supervising one.
Argue with the margin.
YouThe step people skip, and the one that produces the notes. Delete the annotations you disagree with. Save the handful that said something you had not noticed — they survive later re-runs and become the skeleton of your note.
Highlight what you would have highlighted anyway.
YouYour own marks matter more than the AI's; the write-up treats them as the strongest signal. A thought that belongs to no passage: press Option-Shift-Space, say it, Enter — it is in today's note, and you never leave the page.
Ask for the write-up when you finish — or when you stop.
MindMaxBuilt from the annotations and your marks, with the questions you left in your own comments. If you stopped at chapter nine, it says which chapters it is based on.
Keep it as a note and link it.
YouThe write-up is a Markdown file in your folder. Link it to the books and papers it argues with using [[ — which is how, two books later, you find you have been circling the same disagreement.
Why it works here
A second reader in the margin
A reading pass annotates chapter by chapter while you read, through a lens you chose, and closes with a write-up based on the chapters it actually covered.
The AI annotation lenses →Built for whole books
EPUBs open with their chapter structure, so you navigate, annotate and summarise by chapter — and run a single chapter when only one matters.
Read a whole ebook →Notes that link to your other reading
The write-up is a Markdown file you can link with [[ to every book and paper it argues with.
Markdown editor →Also used here: Voice notes from any app · Pricing: what a whole book costs · Guide: reading and annotating
Where it gets hard
- It annotates sparsely on purpose.
The bar is what a busy expert would stop for, so a chapter can go by with two notes. The opening assessment says how densely it intends to mark — judge it against that, not a glowing page.
- A whole book is real AI work.
It costs credits in proportion to its length. Run one book before committing a shelf, and use the single-chapter option when only one chapter matters.
- Badly built EPUBs lose the chapter structure.
Chapter structure is where most of the advantage comes from. A book that is one giant file leaves nothing to navigate by.
- DRM-protected books cannot be opened at all.
If your reader app keeps the book locked, it stays locked.
- The note is only as good as your step 4.
Keeping every annotation produces a summary of a summary. The value is in what you deleted.