How to Read a Book – Quick Summary

1-Sentence Description ofHow to Read a Bookby Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren.

The best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader.

1. Inspectional Reading.

Two Types.

1. Systematic Skimming Read table of contents, preface, index. Read a few paragraphs throughout the book. Decide if it’s worth your time.

2. Superficial Reading Go through the book quickly. Don’t think about the arguments or look anything up. The quick read helps you decide if you want to read it carefully and will help you understand the book better if you do.

2. Analytical reading

Analytical reading is when you read a book properly, you chew and digest it. There are different ways of reading a book. As Francis Bacon remarked, some books should be tasted, others to be swallowed, and a few to be chewed.

There are four basic questions you should ask as a reader.

1. What is the book about as a whole?

2. What is being said in detail and how?

3. Is the book true, in whole or in part?

4. What of it? If the book has given you information, what is its significance?

5. Synpotical Reading

Syntopical reading is a shortcut to reading many books. You look for the paragraphs that matter to you. Analytic reading involves you studying the entire work of the master, but syntopical reading is about you being the master.

Assuming you want to understand a topic better and have prepared a reading list, you would do the following:

1. Inspect the books already identified as relevant to your subject, to find the most relevant passages.

2. Since you are reading different authors, who may be using different words to describe the same thing, you must establish a standard vocabulary to apply to all.

3. Create the appropriate questions and make sure they are clear.

4. Understand the issues. Know what you should be mindful of in terms of the different perspectives that exist.

5. Your questions will have opposing answers. This is where you engage with the different answers by analyzing them. If you do this well, you will have an informed opinion.

“Reading well, which means reading actively, is thus not only a good in itself, nor is it merely a means to advancement in our work or career. It also serves to keep our minds alive and growing.”

“Every book, no matter how difficult, contains interstitial material that can be and should be read quickly.”

“Montaigne speaks of ‘an abecedarian ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it.” The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their ABCs, cannot read at all. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books. They are, as Alexander Pope rightly calls them, bookfull blockheads, ignorantly read. There have always been literature ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores.”

“The person who says of a novel that he has ‘read enough to get the idea’ does not know what is talking about. He cannot be correct, for if the novel is any good at all, the idea is in the whole and cannot be found short of reading the whole.”

“People who cannot read listen to stories.”

This pedagogical work is so comprehensive, it will take forever to summarize the content. In short, this book is a must-read for any serious reader of the GREAT BOOKS of all times.

It can be regarded as a manual for lecturers/teachers/reviewers, or anybody who needs to discuss a serious book. Book clubs comes to mind here for those of us who do not need to face a classroom and would want to apply the knowledge somewhere. You can find an interesting synopsis of the author’s ideas here: GOOGLE DOCS

This book is spot-on.”

I found it sadly outdated. While I had hoped for insights into analytical reading, it was not to be so… Instead the writers talked down to me.. Hmm what does it mean that as a reader I didn’t quite enjoy the read that much. Perhaps back when it was first published in the ’40s it would have been appreciated more, or perhaps I have just passed a point where I was able to appreciate it. Whatever the reason, I give it 2 stars.

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