I read a lot of public domain stuff on Google Books or HathiTrust (usually pdfs). I use a small eink tablet.

This was a gamechanger for me. No more eye strain from reading on a monitor.

I will occasionally ask Gemini if I'm confused or need context. Luckily, most models are trained on public domain books!

Edit: I also take notes. Most of the time it's to connect what I'm reading with another book/paper rather than just summarizing.

I'm a huge fan of Kindles, though I'm sure similar e-ink readers are good too.

I love it because there'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/wait times, but I haven'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's not in use, you can set it so it shows the cover of the book you're currently reading, nice touch. They're fast/snappy and work well. The back light and dark mode is great for night time reading. I didn't get hype over dark mode, but it really makes sense when you'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.

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.

Finally, a lot of people talk about liking having an physical copy of the book as a preference, but I've found the advantages above out weigh it. You can'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's still something new/fun if you miss that new book smell ;)

I listen to public domain books on Librivox while working my day job.

I've been downloading some public domain math texts from Project Gutenberg to my Kindle Scribe to read/research.

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't great, or I need to sleep

I need to read research papers. I just implemented my own paper reader ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU_WeER2PSs but it doesn't have an AI agent.

I like the books app on the ipad. I can select text and copy it over to Obsidian to take with my notes.

Two-page-layout, fullscreen, 43" 4k display, great chair.

Non-fiction as audiobooks

no hacks for me - google books (laptop/mobile) and in-app notes

Google drive