TITLE: Strategies to study apart from "books cover to cover."
QUESTION [19 upvotes]: I have never really liked reading a book from cover to cover (because I usually get bored). Most of what I've learned so far has been picked up from forums like this one, or occasional reading from books, but now (when I'm about to finish my undergraduate studies and thinking about starting graduate school) I face this situation where I need to solidify the things I know in order to study more serious topics, and I realize I can't continue learning this way anymore. 
Do you guys have any advise or strategies on how can I learn (say, differential geometry) without spending my time reading an entire book. It is not that I find the topics boring or that I want to find a shortcut, I just don't think the linear way the topics are presented in books is for me.

REPLY [2 votes]: As Alexander Gruber has pointed out, just plain reading a book can be boring. When I read a book, I generally have my white board (portable size) and work through the examples or problems so I am not just reading the book I am interacting with it. 
You will find in many upper level math books, as you read them or in your case if you read them, that the examples tend to not be complete. The author will add some guidance and say the rest is left for the reader. That is, you will have opportunities to work on problems before you hit the problem section.
I used to not read my math books too and did well in all my classes; however, I think I would know the material so much better if I got into the habit of reading the books early on, because now, I do read the books and think of what I missed out on the first time around. Purely reading the chapter you currently doing in the course should only take 20 minutes (minus working through the problems) so you will still have time to do other activities as well or just plain move onto something much more interesting.