Charles Van DorenReseñas

An overview of human knowledge that, despite its relative conciseness, manages to serve as a source of inspiration for additional reading and rereading. If nothing else, this is a reference work well worth consulting for ideas on the salient features of the centuries' worth of advances in human knowledge.

Of all elements this book has, the most striking one is perhaps its title. A rather simple, descriptive title, yet, ironically, attractive enough to spark curiosity for some, including myself, leading into a question: why should someone read a book about reading a book?

The answer itself reveals that the said title is actually a bit misleading. What the author means by "read" is not its meaning in a general sense, but a specific kind of it, which, if I try to rename the title of this book, it would be: "How to learn something from an expository book (and make sure you really understand it)".

Some readers, who expecting a more general or leisure type of reading, would feel being deceived; but then, such readers are unlikely to have interest in a book titled "How to Read a Book" in the first place. This is a book for those who want to read seriously--readers who often read a book and after which felt that the book itself still have more to say; or those who struggles to understand a certain difficult read.

The book itself is divided into two main parts. In the first part, the author gives a set of general "rules" that the readers have to follow in order to meet the objective of "mastering" the reading skill. The second part goes into explaining different methods of reading specific kind of books, such as science and history.

The general rules itself are separated into 3 levels, in which the author wants the readers to follow in orderly manner. The first part is called "Inspectional Reading", which purpose is to make the readers know what to expect from a book before a "real" reading takes place. Then followed by the next step, called "Analytical Reding". This is where the "real" reading occurs. In this kind of reading, Adler thinks that the readers should treat the process like a discourse with the book's author. The last step is called "Syntopical Reading". Unlike the former two, this type of reading is a special case applied only when the a reader wants to know a certain topic or subject which requires several books to study.

Some people might get overwhelmed by these rules, even say that they are overly unecessary and ended up hating the activity of reading itself. However, Adler emphasized in this book that these rules aren't supposed to be applied to all kinds of books. Some aren't worth youer time and effort to apply all of these rules when reading them. This is a key point which I think should be noted for the readers of this book.

I find in the second part, where Adler categorizes different rules for specific books, are interesting. My favorites are the parts about Philosophy and Science. In each of these sections, He explain what makes certain kind of books requires different kind of reading. He also gave his perspective and little bit of historical contexts about each of these book types, and why these rules will helps us reads the book better. There are also chapter about novels and poetry where Charles van Doren, Adler's co-author takes his seat of giving his expertise.

In the Appendix of the book, the authors gave us a list of books that they thinks are essentials book to read, the books where the special reading skill are worth to be applied to. There are also exercises to test of what we've learned from this book. The test will gave the readers a test to reads, and requires us to apply the rules from this book to answer.

So far, my only critic is the book's writing style that feels outdated and rigid, especially for today's people. However, I think the book itself delivers its objective. Reading difficult books is hard, and sometimes we gave up halfway. So does the skills required to overcome it. Readers who have patience and diligence of following the rules this books taught will, in my opinion, have their time and effort being paid and rewarded in the end.

Though I genuinely enjoyed the book, I feel obliged to highlight couple of glaring factual mistakes I detected. They both deal with Russia and as a Russian I could not pass them unnoticed. The Russo-Japanese War was started by Japan with a surprising attack. The author states opposite.

Next, he confuses Belorussians (literally "White Russians") with White Guards, who fought Reds in the Russian Civil War and had mostly nothing in common with these people, apart from sounding alike to a certain degree. To me it sounds liek a hilarious, pun-like joke, but for many foreign readers out there, who are not familiar with the topic it may serve as a misleading information.

"How To Read A Book", a classic originally published in 1940. My 7-year-old grandson, Cade, laughed at this book, "I don't get it. How can you read this book if you don't know how to read?" Haha...he's so clever!

This type of learning to read is just the reverse of discerning what books to read and reference when writing research papers. I learned a lot of this stuff in high school English class and LOVED it. It was definitely better taught hands on and in an orderly process than reading about it. But, I read this book anyway just to see if I was missing anything.

The main point when reading books you want to learn from, is not to be a lazy reader. You must be interactive with the book. Locating important key words and phrases and making sure you understand their meaning by marking it, looking words up, note the context it's used in the sentence. You must be able to determine if all their data collected to validate the author's point of view is actual facts (from what sources) or simply biased opinions. If it's part of the authors knowledge base, is that knowledge base correct or skewed? You must ask questions for the meaning of passages, or you cannot expect to learn any new insights from it, and to know what the arguments and solutions are and their meaning. To test yourself for understanding, rewrite the proposition (the main point) of a sentence or paragraph in your own words without using any of the author's words.

I loved the first half of this book on how to read a single expository book analytically. It gets a strong 4-stars. The second half of the book on how to read other types of books, such as literary books, novels, poetry, philosophy, social sciences, etc…, gets a strong 1-star. I couldn’t understand a darn thing I was reading, and they seemed to repeat themselves everywhere, adding to the length of the book. So, overall rating is about 3-stars.
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**spoilers below**
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There are 3 purposes for reading: entertainment, information and understanding. All three of these will determine HOW you read. For example, I'm reading this book really slow because I want to gain more than just information to store. I want insight on how I can literally be a better reader.

The author goes over four different levels of reading:

1. ELEMENTARY READING - just learning words and putting them together without any real meaning. You should see "reading readiness" by age 6 or 7, if not, that child may need extra help. Reading readiness involves physical (good vision and hearing), intellectual (remembers entire words and letters), language (speaks clearly and uses several sentences in correct order), and personal (work with other kids, attention span, and can follow directions). Delaying the reading experience is better than jumping the gun and pushing that child into a reading experience he is not ready for. This could turn that child off from reading for the rest of his life. It's okay to pick up reading at his own pace, as long as he is continuing to learn. By 4th grade, your child should be reading street and traffic signs, business signs, picture captions, etc... By 8th, 9th and 10th grade, your child should be able to read almost anything and mature enough to do high school work. By graduating high school, your child should have reached the analytical reading level before entering college or to be able to research and pursue his own interests in life. If they are more than just literate readers and have become "competent" readers, then they have reached the Elementary Reading stage successfully.

2. INSPECTIONAL READING - skimming over the book: the title, preface, the author's blurb, the table of contents and the index (Amazon now usually makes this available to view before purchasing any book) to determine what kind of book it is in a limited amount of time, read first and last couple of pages of the book and a couple of paragraph's in the chapters that may be relevant to you. When reading expository works, read through the entire book superficially. Then, go back and dissect it. [NOTES: This is much like when reading the Bible. I read the full chapter, then follow the study guide to dissect each verse.] And then there's "speed reading". I don't like to force this. Everyone reads different types of books at different speeds. I read mindless novels A LOT faster than expository works. I read the most horrible, awful books superfast, mainly skimming over words...just to say I at least looked at the words...and just to finish the ghastly book, and not even knowing what the heck I read. Very rare for me to actually do this. I know I for sure did this with "Absalom, Absalom" by William Faulkner. Ugh!

HOW TO MAKE A BOOK YOUR OWN, p. 48-51: The "art" of reading is demanding. You have to ask questions of the book, and with a pencil write and answer those questions : 1) What is the book about? 2) What is being said in detail, and how? (Main ideas, assertions, arguments) 3) Is the book true, in whole or part? (You decide) 4) What of it? (Did it enlighten you with knowledge? Do you need to seek more? What is implied?) You bought the book, mark it up and make it yours.

3. ANALYTICAL READING - a complete reading of a book given an unlimited amount of time, marking and highlighting and asking questions of the book. This level of reading is strictly for the sake of understanding. [NOTE: This is my favorite level of reading when it pertains to gardening, genealogical history, learning a new hobby, and reading up on natural health or health issues. I'm very analytical and active with these books, marking notes, highlighting, looking up words in a dictionary. I want to understand what I'm reading.] To answer the question: What is the book about as a whole, follow these four steps:

Step 1: Learn to classify expositorial books - Practical (how-to, should do and should not do, good, bad, ought to...medical, gardening, engineering, economics,) vs. Theoretical (states facts but tries to convince you something is true, and here is a way to make them better...psychology, philosophy, science, history and sometimes political books)

Step 2. If you cannot explain what the book is about (its plot or theme) in just a few words, or a few sentences, then you haven't fully grasped the meaning of the book.

NOTE: Strive to do this with EVERY book, whether novel or expository book. This will come in handy for my book reviews on Goodreads cause I'm so long winded. Remember that a book is something different to each reader, so don't go comparing my reviews with others.

Step 3. Identify the major parts of the book, as in an outline.

Step 4. Can you state the main question the expository book tries to answer?

In any case, the reader has the last say by way of critiquing. If you have not been convinced of the material, then you should present material to counter why you disagree. Don't just disagree and insult. "Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider." Francis Bacon. And then there are those who read just to doubt or read just to rip apart.

NOTE: What comes to mind here, in the year 2021, are political books. Lately, I have run across liberal individuals who are not even reading, but literally bashing conservative authors personally and trashing their name instead of reviewing the book. I have since deleted at least four of my Goodreads friends who "liked" a particular individual's person bashing review that wasn't focused on the book at all. I mean, after all, what is their own opinion now worth?

Reviews should at least be respectful. It does a reader well to live by the code of etiquette: be polite, but be effective when talking back (reviewing). But, know that you are not a "true" critic until you fully listen, or have read, and understand the content. To rate the book on lack of understanding, first be sure to give it your all. It will usually be the reader's fault for not understanding, and it is okay and preferable to state so in this case.

"Be as prepared to agree as to disagree." Your decision should be based on only one consideration - the facts and the truth about the author's case. Agree with the author when you see a point, and don't hesitate to disagree when you don't see their point, but give your grounds for disagreeing, whether it be knowledge (with current evidence) or personal opinion. First, make sure it isn't a misunderstanding, then determine between genuine knowledge or mere opinion. The problem we are having today in conversations regarding politics is perfectly stated on page 148-49: “The trouble is that many people disregard disagreement as unrelated to as either teaching or being taught. They think that everything is just a matter of opinion. I have mine, and you have yours...On such a view, communication can not be profitable if the profit to be gained is an increase in knowledge. Conversation is hardly better than a ping pong game of opposed opinions, a game in which no one keeps score, no one wins, and everyone is satisfied because he does not lose- that is, he ends up holding the same opinions he started with.” If the reader does not know or value the difference between statements of knowledge and flat out expression of opinion, then he is not reading to learn. He is judging the author, not the book, itself.

When disagreeing with an author, specify why: 1) The author is uninformed, 2) The author is misinformed, 3) The author is illogical and not cohesive, or 4) The author's analysis is incomplete. Be specific about what exactly you disagree with AND support your point with specifics. You must be able to argue the truth.

4. SYNTOPICAL READING - most complex level of reading and usually involves the reading of other material, comparing, coming to a conclusion, whether through various sources or even your own conclusion not mentioned. This is research. [NOTE: At times, I do go here when it comes to natural health.]

I'm a life-time learner type person, always reading and yearning to learn more about anything really. This book is for people like me. But, if are a English student, it would actually be better to learn from an English teacher. And if you are an English teacher, then this is a must read so you can teach your students better reading habits of expository works. Also, if you are a writer, you will definitely want to read this book. It is the reverse of writing and provides all the steps in how to choose a book, how to scan a book for relevancy, how to properly agree or disagree with an author.

A well-read person is NOT the one who has read the most books. A well-read person is one who has applied all the principles of analytical reading, and has complete understanding of the subject or subjects of interest and the meaning the author has written. A good student often becomes a teacher, and a good reader often becomes a writer, and not always in the "professional" sense, but as in the sharing of information with others.

Special note to remember from page 339: "You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn."

But, most importantly, learning to read well (actively), keeps our minds alive. Like the muscles, over time, the mind can atrophy, if not used.

Please follow the link to my review in my blog.
https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2023/08/book-review-how-to-read-book-classic.h...

✒️ Overall a useful book that covers its purpose well, but certainly also fails to fully equip us to live our readers’ lives properly. The good is mostly about providing an articulate method to extract the substance of an argumentative text, be it an essay, a philosophical treatise or a scientific book. But there are many other facets of reading that are not addressed or lightly handled : fiction, the very (physical) act of reading, how to choose readings, note taking, etc. The tips and tricks about reading the different types of texts (history, mathematics, etc.) were also short and not very convincing. One could wonder why four hundred pages were necessary to help us track arguments and propositions in a nonfiction book, which is the only thing this book does really well. The bibliography of the Western World must read (provided in Appendix) was a good reference, though.

Strong points
1. A clear and articulate method for analytical reading
2. Addressing the issue of syntopical reading quite well
3. Spurs the readers to aim at top quality in their reading

Weak points
1. Does not cover many issues about reading with sufficient depth
2. A lot is dedicated to analytical reading of argumentative texts, but is that useful?
3. Pompous style½

A good book about how to read for real learning and understanding. Applies primarily to non-fiction books, and will be especially useful for serious readers, researchers, and academics. You'll learn:
• The difference between reading for information vs reading for enlightenment.
• The 4 key questions you must habitually answer when reading any book, and how to mark a book as you read.
• A step-by-step guide to master 4 progressive levels of reading: elementary reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading, and syntopical reading. These allow you to fully understand a book, and learn a complex topic.
• How to read different types of books or material, including practical books, imaginative literature, history, math/science, philosophy and social science books.

Book summary at: https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-how-to-read-a-book/

Summary: A book that changes the way I think about books and the activity of reading in general. The author takes you on a ride that seems pretty sanctimonious at first but quite reasonable and thought provoking by the end. He does it with nice word-talking and pretty good humour so I forgive him his sanctimony.

Things I liked:

Genuinely got me thinking about how I read books and what I might have been missing out on for just about every book I ever picked up and put down.

Challenged me to actively digest it arguments and produce my own if i disagreed. "An argument without propositions is just an opinion" is one quote from the book I've decided to make my own.

Things I thought could be improved:

Too many freaking rules (there's heaps and they are hard to keep track of). He could have worked harder to i) have less rules, ii) reference them by title versus number iii) show more examples the displayed them all being integrated. Without this I just tended to skim over them and assume I could go back and refine my knowledge if I had to.

An easy reference for all the rules at the start of the book would have been good to address the above and chill me out to the idea I could just use that rather than trying to take all my notes as I went.

Highlight: I think the section on synoptical reading was probably the best for me in terms of real knock it out of the park, new idea goodness.

How to Read a Book describes techniques for reading more effectively. It focuses on reading for understanding rather than reading for pleasure, so the techniques describe tend to apply less to fiction than to nonfiction. However, the techniques described can be applied, with modification, to fiction if your goal in reading a particular work is more than entertainment.

The authors divide reading into four levels. The first level of reading is basic reading and comprehension. They spend little time on this level on the assumption that anyone who is interested in a book about reading books has probably achieved the first level of reading.

Inspectional reading

The second level of reading they call "inspectional reading". Inspectional reading is reading to get a general understanding of what a book is about. The first inspectional reading technique is "systematic reading" or "prereading". The purpose of this technique is to allow one to quickly decide what a book is about and whether it is worthwhile to spend one's time reading the book. They say a systematic reading should take about five to ten minutes. Systematic reading may be useful if one wants to know if a book answers a specific question or if a book is as interesting as the title makes it sound. The second inspectional reading technique is "superficial reading". Superficial reading is, more or less, the type of reading one engages in for day-to-day reading. When reading a book superficially, the goal is to obtain a general understanding of the book even if some specific parts remain beyond understanding or interest. The authors point out that most reading deserves no more than a superficial reading. Most of my reading comes from blogs, so I agree wholeheartedly.

At both the second and third levels of reading, one ought to be asking these questions of a book: "What is the book about as a whole?" "What is being said in detail, and how?" "Is the book true, in whole or part?" "What of it?" The depth with which one answers these questions will, not surprisingly vary with whether one is doing a second level reading or a third level reading.

Analytical reading

The third level of reading, and the heart of the book, is "analytical reading". Analytical reading is a process of really coming to deeply understand a book. The goal in analytical reading is to understand what the author meant when they wrote the book. At the second level of reading, one is satisfied if the book answers one's own questions; at the third level of reading one is not satisfied unless one feels they understand what the author's questions were and whether or not those questions have been answered. The third level of reading is divided into stages. At the first stage, one finds what the book is about by classifying the type of book it is, determining what it is about, defining the major parts of the book, and defining the problems the author is aiming to solve.

The second stage of analytical reading aims to interpret a book. It involves finding the authors key terms, propositions, and arguments and their meanings. This stage also involves determining whether or not the author solved the problems identified in the first stage.

The third stage of analytical reading involves criticizing the book. The authors stress that this stage cannot be undertaken until one understands the book fully. The authors claim that "I don't completely understand what you're saying, but I disagree anyway" is neither a valid nor useful criticism. Beyond that they discuss that a fair criticism should show where the author is uninformed, where the author is misinformed, where the author is illogical, and where the author's analysis is incomplete. If one cannot fit one's disagreement into one of these categories one of two things must be true: the reader did not fully understand the author's argument or one is obliged to dismiss their disagreement and either agree with the author or suspend judgment on the work.

Syntopical reading

The fourth level of reading is syntopical reading. Syntopical reading is a technique for reading many books to answer a particular question. It is like inspectional reading in so far as the goal is to answer one's own questions rather than understand the problems the author is trying to solve. It is like analytical reading in that a fair comparison requires a deep understanding of what the different authors are saying with respect to the question at hand.

The first stage of a syntopical reading is to choose a subject and survey the field for relevant works. This survey includes making a bibliography of works that seem relevant and then doing an inspectional reading of all of those works to determine which ones are actually relevant. The process of surveying may cause one to refine the question that is being investigated.

The second stage is actually performing the syntopical reading. This involves first finding the relevant passages from the books remaining after the first stage. Once those passages have been found, the reader must construct a neutral terminology that the different authors employ or can be interpreted as employing. Like in analytical reading, once the terms have been defined, the reader must determine a set of propositions; this is done by establishing a set of neutral questions and determining how the various texts answer those questions. Given these questions, the reader can define the major and minor issues relating to the topic and analyze those issues in the light of the views of all the authors.

Note that the purpose of a syntopical reading is to allow the reader to determine what different authors say, not to allow the reader to come up with their own opinion. Opinion forming should, ideally, come after the completion of the syntopical reading when the reader has a full understanding of the different opinions and arguments pertaining to the topic.

Conclusions

Overall, I found this book to be a useful presentation of different ways of reading a book. The three facts that will have the most influence on my day-to-day reading are the techniques for effective prereading, the questions to answer when reading a book, and the fact that not all books need to be read in depth. The section about analytical and syntopical readings were certainly useful, but the times when I need to apply those techniques are more rare. That said, I do think that anyone who has ever had to survey a field (especially grad students) should read this book just so they can understand syntopical reading.

I have no criticisms of the book, but while reading it there were several topics I wished it had addressed in more detail. The output of even the first stage of analytical reading would make for useful notes, but the authors did not really address techniques for note taking. They were of the opinion that the most effective way to take notes is to mark up the book itself, but this is not always practical (library books, internet, small margins, etc.).

Another issue I would like to have seen addressed in more detail is how to do a partial analytical reading of a book. The authors admit that one rarely needs to do a full analytical reading of a book and that many books are not worth the effort, but they do not address in detail what steps are most important in a partial analytical reading. Should one go through the first stage and not the rest or should one go through all the stages of analytical reading but for only one issue that the author addresses or should one do something else completely? Perhaps there are multiple ways of doing a partial analytical reading and it is up to the judgment of the reader to determine which is appropriate at a given time.

Finally, this is rather outside the scope of this book, especially as it varies by field, but is a question I often struggle with. When doing a syntopical reading, how does one go about amassing the initial bibliography? If you know the term you can search the library or the internet or amazon, but what if you only have a vague idea of a topic? How do you go from a hard to search for general question to a set of useful search terms? Since this edition of the book was published in the 1970s, answers would have changed, but this is something I have always wanted to know.

Changed the way I interact with books. It changed the way I read.

Taking into consideration that it was first published 80 years ago, this book isn't bad at all. However, most of the proposed reading techniques and methods are somewhat basic and obvious and offer nothing the general reader in our time doesn't already know or apply.

12/16/21

The only book necessary for learning "how to read a book." Simple, straightforward and scholarly all at the same time. Want to become a better reader? Adler is your man.

With half a million copies in print, How to Read a Book is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader, completely rewritten and updated with new material.

Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to “judge a book by its cover,” and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the author’s message from the text.

Also included is instruction in the different techniques that work best for reading particular genres, such as practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science works.

Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests you can use measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension, and speed.

If you want to understand the bible or any book for that matter better then get this book and read it

Snobby but useful

Required reading for all that even remotely want to read well.

I regret my disappointment with this book which has been recommended to me over and over again. Especially since its author was Mortimer Adler, tireless defender of the Great Books.



There is great and very useful practical advice in here. But it is buried in endless meandering essays. Adler makes a lot of sweeping and highly opinionated statements that only serve to undermine the practical advice. Some of his judgments are entirely befuddling. His rather dismissive view of the field of history was, for example, as far as I am familiar the history of historiography, outdated even in the period in which he first wrote this book. At one point, I even found him to have an ironically very dogmatic view of the alleged dogmatic views of adherents of political and religious ideologies.



I probably would have gotten more out of this book's practical aspects if I had read it in an earlier stage of my life, but I am not sure if I would have had the patience to wade through its tedious repetition. I feel like the true meat of the book could have better been presented as a concise booklet.



On a positive note, I did very much like his pitch for his «The Great Ideas A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World», the topical index to his Great Books of the Western World collection.

I just went through this book for a second time. I managed to get further... Note I skimmed the whole book, then more completely read the inspectional, analytical, and syntopical sections. I skipped the section with practical genre-specific advice.

My takeaway: if you want to get the most benefit from a (nonfiction) book, then you have to put effort into it. That's basically it.

To explain further, when reading a book you should:
1. Get a picture of where the book will go before you leap in properly. Do this by paying attention to the title, blurb, ToC. Skimread it, particularly chapter introductions and conclusions, etc.
2. Do more than passively absorb the text. Take notes on the content, underline important lines, summarise it to yourself. Are you sure you know what an author means when they use certain words? Is the author trying to convince you of something? What is their argument, and do you find it compelling?
3. You'll probably need to read several books to get a balanced view on a subject.

I might come back to this and drive into the specifics a little more, but this is enough to help me read more effectively for now.

I have two complaints:
1. The author is extremely wordy. I don't know if that was the done thing back then, or if it was just Mortimer's style, but he takes a lot of space to explain something.
2. His advice is law. Rather than "here's how I read a book", or "here's a sensible framework that makes sense to me", his presentation is THE WAY to read a book. It's a very mechanical way of reading. But, I think he probably expects you as the reader to realise this, to agree and disagree with him, and to leave with what works for you.

This book is showing its age. Or it's aimed at liberal arts majors. Or something. What I *did* gleem from it is that it's not for me. Your mileage may vary, but I'd doubt it.

This book was originally published in 1940 by Adler and updated in 1972 with the help of Van Doren. At least when in comes to their approach to reading nonfiction, a more apt title might be “How to Attack a Book.” Their approach features a systematic process of extracting most if not more than the author intended to convey. It also contains some savvy advice on how to measure the truth of the assertions in the book. Whether you take the authors’ advice to heart or not, you will have to admit that their exposition is a prime example of lucid expository prose.

According to them, there are four levels of reading: Elementary, Inspectional, Analytical, and Syntopic, which they proceed to explain in depth.

Personally, I have always held that “syntopic” reading is essential for book reviewers. What this term means is that in order to evaluate a book on a particular subject, you must gain familiarity with other works on the same subject or in the same genre.

For example, when reading a book purporting to be the history of an event or an individual, you need to understand how the perceptual and ideological lenses informing the history leads to quite different (and selective) accounts. It also helps to ascertain what sources were used and which ones were omitted, thereby shaping the story and altering the narrative. As students of epistemology have long noted, histories are far from value-free, and history too exists within a complex ideological web.

Analogously with fiction, it is useful to have a familiarity with particular genres and sub-genres, so one can more usefully evaluate how well an author represents the field. The authors also advise that you should enter the author’s world on his or her (Adler and Van Doren would never use a singular ‘their’) own terms. The book should be believable even if improbable.

The authors even give advice on how to read what they call “canonical” books. By that, they mean books like the Bible, the Koran, and Das Kapital, that true believers think contain “the Truth,” no matter how improbable the authors’ assertions appear to nonbelievers. The true believers often have to engage in some exotic mental gymnastics to create new meanings of common words while we nonbelievers can treat the books like imaginative literature.

As an added bonus, Adler and Van Doren created a list of 137 authors of “Great Books” that they deem worthy of exhaustive study.

Evaluation: The book is a bit dry, but well worth reading, especially for students of literature.

(JAB)½

This is a useful guide to in-depth reading so you can get the most out your books. The authors provide step-by-step instructions on inspectional, analytical and syntopic reading. This type of reading is more useful for expository books, but the authors also briefly discuss how to critically read novels, poetry, history, philosophy, and science books.


The main point the authors make is that reading books effectively comes down to reading them actively, motivated by a sincere desire to understand, learn, and grow. Without that motivation, the reader is really just going through the motions and won't get the maximum benefit of the book. Advanced readers will have picked up most or all of the strategies and techniques discussed in this book through trial and error. Therefore, this book would be most valuable to less skilled readers in that it should expedite the development of these reading skills, and it should reinforce (and validate) this skill for those who are already skilled readers.


The main detraction of this book is its overly verbose prose and repetitiveness, especially in a book designed for people who aren't skilled at reading. This is rather unfortunate, since those people that really need the help this book can provide are probably not going to get very far with it. On the other hand, maybe the repetitiveness is useful for reinforcing the methods and techniques discussed in the book?


This book would be of most use to college/university students, possibly high-school student and people who want to get more out of their reading experience. This is not a book one reads for fun, this is a self-help instruction manual. Some effort on the part of the reader is required.

I wish I could say the book was very helpful to me but it wasn't. The year it was first published was 1940 and it very much shows that. It doesn't stand the test of time very well. It mentions the TV and Radio as mere distractions from reading books. I'm guessing if it knew about the eventual existence of audiobooks it would consider them blasphemous.

After I realized what I was getting into, I shifted my focus from reading a practical, self-help book to reading a historical slice of academia.

There are a few advice that can be extracted but they're all common sense like "match the speed reading to the difficulty of the book", "here are 10 ways you can write on the sides of the book to extract useful information", "read a book twice if it was above your level" etc.

It's basically a historically frozen love letter to the institution of reading and writing. If you take it as so you might find it entertaining because it's lacking in utility in 2018.

A lot of useful information regarding the best way to read any written media. However, since the author have a philosopical background, a lot of his example might be difficult for most people.