How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
How to Read a Book, written by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, is definitely a classic. However, it may not be for everyone. You must love reading, not just for entertainment, but for gaining knowledge in order to truly appreciate the work that these two authors have put together.
I started reading this book in 2009 and managed to get through about seventy pages before realizing that I wasn’t ready for this kind of reading. Feeling more mature, I decided to tackle it again in 2013, and what a delight it was.
Some of the rules described in the book were things that I was already doing, such as underlining and writing in the margins. This is the main reason why I prefer buying hard copies of books instead of e-books. There is something about physically touching and going through the pages of an actual book that can never be replaced by an e-reader.
The book describes four levels of reading:
(1) Elementary — What does the sentence say?
(2) Inspectional — Skimming or pre-reading with the aim to get out of the book everything that the reader can in a short period of time. Questions to be asked are: What is the book about? What is the structure of the book? What are its parts?
