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Matthew Cornell put together a post for staging your reading that I clipped in my newsreader a couple of months ago and lost it. I have just found it again, and it is full of great information based on the book The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life by Steve Leveen:

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

Many of my subscribers are active readers and book lovers. My post How to read a lot of books in a short time is my most popular, and I’ve even had the pleasure of receiving surprise copies in the mail! Along those lines, Steve Leveen’s book The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life is a great meta book, and one of those “I have to give copies to friends” works that leaves a lasting impact.

There’s a lot to the diminutive tome, but here I’d like to share his suggested workfow, an example of a specialized system [1] (unlike Getting Things Done, which is a general one).
Overall Flow
Here’s the staging Leveen recommends (a “shelf flow,” if you will [2]). The basic idea is repeated reviews over time (including during reading and after) help strengthen recall. (Note: “*” indicates my additions.)

1. Pre-candidates list* (desired books, i.e., your wish list)
2. Candidates library (acquired books - a Someday/Maybe list)
3. Currently reading stack
* Castaways*
4. Après reading 1 shelf
5. Après reading 2 shelf
6. Après reading 3 shelf
7. Living library

Click over to Matt’s Idea Blog and read it all. And a special thank you to Steve Leveen, for such a great reading tool!