How to Read a Book
Books are vital tools for any Creative Professional committed to growing as a way of life. Creative Professionals explore various topics of interest to better understand the world around them and to make connections that can improve both their professional and personal life.
But we were never taught how to read a book. As elementary as this may sound, effectively reading a nonfiction book is a skill, a critical one we didn’t learn in school. How can we train our minds to read books more effectively? Luckily, we have at our disposal Mortimer Adler & Charles Van Doren’s How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading.
Originally published in 1940, this book is a seminal guide to how to approach reading a book. Incidentally, professor at University of Chicago Mortimer Adler was one of the two editors responsible for formulating the Great Books of the Western World curriculum, so he’s more than qualified to instruct us on how to read.
The book breaks down the four levels of readings: Elementary, Inspectional, Analytical, and Syntopical. (Most of us never really go beyond the first level of elementary reading.) It also provides specific strategies for reading more efficiently as well as how to approach different kinds of reading material like literature, plays, history, science, philosophy, and social science.
Perhaps most importantly, the authors show you how to read critically and analyze a book, learning from the material at a much deeper level. If you read all nonfiction books at the same rate and if you assume you need to read every book from start to finish in a linear fashion, How to Read a Book will transform your ability to learn and read effectively.
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We are a not-for-profit educational organization, founded by Mortimer Adler and we have recently made an exciting discovery–three years after writing the wonderfully expanded third edition of How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren made a series of thirteen 14-minute videos on the art of reading. The videos were produced by Encyclopaedia Britannica. For reasons unknown, sometime after their original publication, these videos were lost.
Three hours with Mortimer Adler on one DVD. A must for libraries and classroom teaching the art of reading.
I cannot over exaggerate how instructive these programs are–we are so sure that you will agree, if you are not completely satisfied, we will refund your donation.
Please go here to see a clip and learn more:
http://www.thegreatideas.org/HowToReadABook.htm
During my first semester in chiropractic school, I took an Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics course with a handful of my classmates. It saved my life. When one is taking 35 to 36 credits per semester, it is impossible to keep up with the volume of reading in a normal, “traditional” way.
We were taught how to scan the book, like a road map, then go through the book several times, with greater and greater detail, eventually reading every word; then scanning again, like a final overview, with the last pass. The process is amazing, and it’s been demonstrated with thousands of people to increase one’s speed of reading AND retention. I eventually got the point where I could read and study an entire chapter of Guyton’s Physiology in about an hour.
However, what you are recommending above appears to be on a different level. After clicking on the link in Max Weismann’s comment above and watching the intro video, I am definitely fascinated, especially since I now know that Mr. Adler was one of the editors of the Great Books of the Western World.
Thank you for sharing your experience and insights with us here at your blog.
Dr. Andrew Colyer
Hi Andrew,
Yes, what Alder is offering is definitely very different than a course on reading faster (I took Evelyn Wood’s course too). The ability to size up a book before you read it and using different levels of reading for different material is highly valuable for anyone who invests time with the written word.
Blessings,
Scott