How To Read A Book

I love reading.  Trisha and I have talked, half-seriously, about taking a vacation where we just go "somewhere" with a bunch of books and spend days catching up on our reading list.  I'm fairly regularly re-prioritizing my "what I'll read next" list, and always adding new things to it.  (you'd think I'd know better!)

As much as I love reading, I'm not all that good at remembering what I've read.  Now that's a problem!  So, I'm setting out to learn to read better and improve my comprehension and retention.  How can I do that?  By reading a book, of course!

How To Read A Book (revised), by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, is my new reference for reading.  This is not necessarily and easy book, and ironically, it's not yet one of my favorite books.  The concept, over-simplified, is that reading a book takes planning, and effort, and even note-taking.  The authors are in favor of things I like to do: underlining, circling, notes in margins, etc.  (Not a good idea for library books)  I'm not sure they say this directly, but using post-it notes and pages fits the concept as well.

Just to give an idea of what the authors expect, here's the list of rules for the first stage of analytical reading (from p95):

1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter
2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity
3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole
4. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve

That might sound a bit dry.  This is NOT a boring book.  It is a challenging book.  So, if my goal is to improve my comprehension and retention, how do I know if I've succeeded?

Comments

[Derek Schwab]

I've found it's better (for me) if my notes are external to the book. Most recently, I've been blogging about my reading, for example. Notes written in the margin, things underlined, etc. don't seem to be all that useful unless I actually go back to that page in the book at some point, which often doesn't happen.

[Richard Dolan]

I love this book! A couple of bits of trivia: Mortimer J Adler was also editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Charles Van Doren is the Princeton guy of Quiz Show fame...

[Mark Burleson]

I bought this book awhile ago to read it..its sitting on my shelf still :D

[Steven Vore]

don't know why trackback's not working, so: http://steven.vorefamily.net/2008/05/12/book-how-to-read-a-book/

[Margaret Salyers]

You mean to tell me that I spent too many years and way too many thousands of dollars getting my Bachelor's degree in English Literature (don't laugh) when all I had to do was read this book! I will definitely put it on my summer reading list.

[Tony Dye]

Actually, it would take just a little more than this one book, although it's a great start. At the back of the book is a long list of suggested readings. My son Peter (also an English major, coincidentally) looked at that list and found a lot of overlap.

There is another book that Luann found me (but I can't remember the name at the moment) that is a great summary of a lot of literature that let's you get a hint without all the reading. However, don't through away your degree quite yet :-)

[Tony Dye]

re: "that other book"
It's "Invitation to the Classics" edited by Cowan and Guinness.
http://www.amazon.com/Invitation-Classics-Always-Wanted-Masterworks/dp/080106810X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210707856&sr=8-1

[mestranscribe]

Is this the same Os Guinness (how many can there be?) RE: the call to service at Perimeter a couple weeks ago?
This sounds like a great book but I usually prefer the "complete" classics - the abbreviated versions usually don't do justice to the original. But I'll see if I can find a copy at the library.

[Tony Dye]

Correct, the same Os Guinness. Luann has the book in the Perimeter bookstore.