How To Read A Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. Touchstone. NY. 1972.
Soft Cover. Glued. 427 p. Appendices. Exercises and Tests. Index. 0.8 lbs.
Found then lost several years ago; purchased at Pearl’s Books.
I haven’t heard from Stuart Ritchie yet regarding his advice on how to read non-fiction, science-themed books. But How To Read A Book is a classic that gives a large amount of usable advice. It is worth reading. I say that with caveats, which I address later in this review.
How could one have known—without the authors’ sage advice—just how many steps are taken, how many details are attended to, and what intricacies are involved in actively reading a piece of non-fiction?
First, the authors set the stage about who this book is intended for: readers who wish to “gain increased understanding.” Second, they identify four levels of reading, and then spend the majority of the book on the last three.
The first level is Elementary, and is indeed largely associated with the simple act of learning “the rudiments of the art of reading.” They spend a chapter on this; it’s of passing interest but helps one absorb the authors’ syntax, style, and vocabulary.
The heart of the book starts on page 31 when they begin explicating the second level of reading: Inspectional or Active Reading. For these authors, reading is active, not passive. If you seek understanding, then that assumes there is something you do not understand and therefore are seeking answers to questions.
Active reading entails asking questions of the book itself, beginning with the Inspectional Reading question: do I want to read this book?
It could be easy to assume that I as the writer and you as readers of this article already do Inspectional Reading, but are we consciously doing so?
They break Inspectional Reading down into distinct steps that can be summarized as skimming: paying attention to the title and sub-title, reading the blurbs on the back cover, reading the inside dust jacket description, inspecting the table of contents, looking over the index, observing if it has appendices, citations, bibliography, maps, charts, and other reading aids, and flipping through the book to read a paragraph here or there.
The second part of Active Reading must take place after you have claimed ownership of the book, for they encourage you to mark up the book. Make notes in the margins, develop a system of notations so you can go back and review the book quickly as you look for the main turns of the argument, summarize the book in the front or back cover, and so on.
Now, I must admit, I have developed a system for doing this with library books; and no, it does not involve writing in the book! I love libraries too much to deface and mar their books. Instead, I use small post-it notes. I get the packets that come in a variety of colors, will ‘mark’ the book with the various colors, and even write on the post-its a quick word or two to help me remember why I wanted to note that passage of the book.
The authors would applaud this, for I am making the book my own, which is what they are encouraging an active reader to do. If the book is that good, then I buy my own copy and mark it up as much as I want. Otherwise, I use those post-its as guides for a summary of the book that I write in my book journal.
Analytical Reading, the Third Level of Reading, entails a deep dive into four basic questions while reading through the entire book: What is the book about as a whole? What is being said in detail, and how? Is the book true, in whole or in part? And What of it?
The heart of the book addresses how to ask and then answer these four questions. I will not detail them, for I encourage you to read the book yourself to learn how to ask and answer these questions.
The Fourth Level of Reading is called Syntopical Reading. I’ve not come across this term except with this book; most of us would call it Comparative Reading. Their term seems designed more for the graduate student who must read a large number of books on the same topic to glean the information they need in order to present their own thesis.
But I have used their suggestions myself for my own reading and writing pleasure. Indeed, much of what they encourage at this level of reading I used in my series on the Subject Review of Physics. I will use them again with other Subject Reviews that I do. And I have used their suggestions for my own private pleasure of reading books/articles and in watching documentaries on the same subject.
Beyond the four levels of reading, they have some short chapters on how to read specific types of books, such as fiction, science, history, philosophy, and more. They each have their own rare tidbits of insights.
The very last portion of the book helps one distinguish so-called Great Books from ordinary ones, a list of suggested Great Books to read, and exercises to assist one in improving their reading skills.
With so much admiration for this book and for how much I have used this book as a tool, what could be my caveats and hesitations with it?
It is way too easy, in the year 2022, to criticize the book for being outdated, especially with its vocabulary. The reader must get used to reading over and over again the words ‘he,’ ‘his,’ or ‘him’—as though only males can be reader or author.
In fact, I was so astonished to read the one and only time the words ‘girl,’ ‘mother,’ and ‘her’ are mentioned, that I marked them in the book—all in the chapter on reading literature. And confoundingly, the only time ‘women’ is mentioned is in the Reading History chapter regarding current events.
Likewise, the list of Great Books includes only one woman author, Jane Austen. They admit up front that the Great Books list is comprised solely of Western authors and books. They have their legitimate reasons for doing so; but still, it is simply an outdated approach for 2022.
And yet, the authors seem quite liberal-minded in that they are quick to acknowledge differing views as legitimate, seem supportive of civil liberties for all people, and open-minded to their own foibles.
Besides its outdated vocabulary, another challenge in reading this book is its level of detail. Some passages just take too long to explain a simple concept.
Finally, there’s not a single mention of Graphic Novels, the internet, Wikipedia, or any other version of acquiring understanding in our modern wired age. It takes extrapolation on the part of current readers to apply the authors’ useful tools to the general act of reading in the 2020s.
The book offers so much help in teaching one how to read well that it is easily worthwhile to be re-written today in a more modern tone of voice, with a much more inclusive vocabulary, a streamlined analysis and explanation, and examples of how to read online.
But until then, accept these caveats, read the book, and improve your reading skills.
Other reviews that mention this book: Quantum Physics Part III, A Bright Future, The Ministry For The Future, Essay based on The Science of Storytelling