Let’s face it. Many people enjoy reading, but not everyone is “good” at it. Sure, picking up and enjoying a good novel (or even a trashy one) isn’t all that difficult for anyone with basic literacy skills. But not every book is that sort of book. Some require a bit more work.
Mortimer J. Adler, a philosopher, put together his thoughts on the subject in his 1940 book How to Read a Book. He revised it in 1972 with Charles Van Doren, and given what I do for a living, it only made sense for me to read it while I had some free time.
Now, my department has, over the years, often passed out to new students an Adler-penned essay titled “How to Mark a Book”. It’s…fine. Basic. All it really says is a well-read book or piece of reading should probably be marked up. There are no tips beyond that on how exactly to do that, only that an active reader will.
However, How to Read a Book does a bit more than that. The work here isn’t about basic literacy as the title might suggest, but about a form of reading commonly called “active reading” where a reader does more than simply go over the words, but rather takes notes, ponders, rereads, and attempts to deeply understand what the author is trying to say. Adler is rather strident on how this system doesn’t work quite so well on fiction, which is often not intended for such a deep level of reading, but Adler’s focus is primarily on nonfiction that must meet certain requirements as a work and that the reader must meet on various terms of his or her own.
Now, Adler does taker a few chapters on how to read specific types of writing, including fiction, and when he does so, he re-qualifies the tasks and questions the active reader must answer.
So, really, a book like this has tips that can help most readers who take what Adler has to say to heart, but be aware of two things. First, this is philosophical writing as much as anything, and can be a bit on the dry and technical side. Second, perhaps not surprising given the date of either the original version or the revision, Adler’s recommended reading list, both at the end of the work and strew throughout the book, leans more towards Western and male. That may lead to an issue when it comes to, say, reading Eastern philosophy–and Adler has a whole chapter on reading philosophy–but overall, this was a good book with some good tips, and if that’s your thing, then give it a shot. Maybe you’ll become a better reader as a result.
Grade: B+
0 Comments