Book: “How to Read a Book” my summary
On a previous podcast I mentioned that I was reading a book titled, “How to read a book” which was written by Mortimer Adler. It is much more academic than it sounds, and is proving to be the catalyst in giving me advanced reading skills - most of which I hadn’t ever read.
I have only reading the first 56 pages of 350, but I have applied the wisdom in those first 50 pages and had already seen incredible results. This mainly comes from Adler’s insights into what he calls Inspectional reading, which is a process of getting to the theme and details of a book without having to read every single word. He calls it skimming, but in my mind that conjures pictures of randomly flipping through pages in a hopeless effort to find the “gems” of the book. Instead it 6 step process that is followed up by the 4 essentials questions that need answered after reading a book.
6 Steps in Inspectional Reading (a little different than book from my emphasis):
- Read the title page and/or preface (or introduction)
- Study the Tables of Contents (looking for structure to the big idea)
- Check the Index (for key words and their passages)
- Read Dust Jacket and/or Publishers Blurb
- Look at Chapters that seem to be pivotal to the Books Argument (from the general knowledge you have at this point)
- Finally, turn the pages, skimming(looking at subtitles and viewing each page quickly) and looking for lists, diagrams and interesting sections
4 Questions to Answer after reading a book
- What is the book about as a whole?
- What is being said in detail?
- Is the Book true in whole or part?
- What of it? (further study, implications, action steps)
Being the skeptic that I am I really wasn’t sure this would prove effective. So I just tried it this afternoon on a book I have been meaning to read titled, “The Starfish and the Spider”. It was actually hard for me to trust doing an Inspectional read on this book because so many people have recommended it that I didn’t want to miss anything. But after only 2 hours+ I had gone through the Inspectional Reading and had answered the 4 questions (in the books blank pages, a great way to summarize and reference the book later!), and feel like I have a stronger understanding of the book than if I had drudged through every word. Very Exciting!
I highly suggest reading “How to read a book” by Mortimer J. Adler. I even more pumped now to read the remaining 300 pages carefully so that I can grow in the discipline of reading, and to get more from it and much less time!
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Oh, and the kicker for this type of reading is Adler says it is all you need to read 95% - 99% of the books you will come in contact with. Nice!
hahahha…. i loved this tony. i read voraciously when i have time and find myself scanning and was intrigued by your tips— and then i read this comment and laughed out loud, enough that scott even woke up for a moment (he sleeps pretty solid). i would LOVE to read 95-99% of the books i come in contact with.. i feel overcome with inadequacy when i enter bookstores. thanks for the comment. it made me feel connected.
Reading this book and kind of hearing from an “expert reader” was cool enough, but then to see that most books don’t need every word written to be comprehended was extremely liberating. It opened my eyes to the fact that the reason I don’t make it through a lot of books isn’t discipline it is that I have fully comprehended the book and my mind has moved on and is bored. Plus, this time of reading is very active, which is more fun anyways.
More than anything it is great to hear from you! I still remember swimming the speed boat out of a drift and hanging out in Georgia, great times!