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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1. Do you know how to read a book?
2. Reading Categories
3. Reading with Purpose