This Advent, you can learn the Christmas stories from Matthew and Luke by heart.

You can memorize an entire epic poem or book of the Bible – one verse at a time.

Good epic poems are rare. Funny epic poems are almost non-existent. But what about funny epic poems that also set a whole worldview to memorable rhythm? I’ve only found one so far. But I couldn’t memorize the Glugs of Gosh until I stopped using loci and visual mnemonics.

When you’re memorizing a long poem, you don’t need visual mnemonics for every line. But if the poem is too repetitive, or too random, you may need a few extra loci to keep the stanzas in order.

If you want to keep what you read, the first step is to collect the parts you want to memorize as you read. After you finish the book, you make those parts into memorable flashcards. Here’s how.

If you want to keep what you read, you have to collect it into your flashcard system. This is extra work. How do you flag the important parts of what you read, without turning reading relaxation into study time?