"How to Read a Book" is a book on teaching reading methods co-authored by American writers Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. It is regarded as the Bible for reading by many readers.
The book begins by pointing out that reading of any kind is an activity and therefore some active energy is necessary. When many people are reading, they often start to have stagnant eyes and drowsy mind after reading for a long time. This state of poor mental health makes it impossible to continue reading. The author believes that the reason why people have this phenomenon is because of the lack of initiative in reading.
Completely passive reading will only make you more tired and boring, until you give up reading. Therefore, people who are about to start reading must first realize that reading is an active thing, and the more active reading is, the better the effect will be.
Since reading is an activity, there must be a purpose for the activity. The purpose of reading can be divided into two types: the first is to read for information, and the second is to read for understanding.
If you read a book that is comparable to your own knowledge level, then the purpose of reading is only to obtain the information contained in this book. Reading a book that is higher than one's own knowledge level, trying to understand and read it, and challenging one's existing understanding is another purpose of reading-to improve understanding.
This book is written for those who want to read books whose main purpose is to improve their understanding. Without any external help, only relying on the strength of the heart, play with the words and sentences in front of you, and slowly improve yourself, from only vague concepts to a clearer understanding. Self-improvement by one's own strength, advance from superficial understanding to deep understanding, and self-cognition break out of the cocoon.
A good reader should have keen observation, sensitive and reliable memory, room for imagination, and well-trained analysis and reflection skills. However, not all readers have these reading abilities, but fortunately these abilities and skills can be acquired through learning and training, and the answers and secrets are hidden in this reading bible.
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01
How to grasp the basic structure of a book and understand the content of the book
"How to Read a Book" divides reading into four levels: basic reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading, and thematic reading . The reason why it is called a level rather than a method or a category is because of the relationship between the four levels of progression and inclusion. In other words, the level of reading is gradual . Level 2 reading builds on Level 1 reading, Level 3 builds on Level 2, and Level 4, the highest level, includes all previous levels of reading.
First of all, let's understand the first level of reading: basic reading. This is the most basic level of reading, with the main purpose of literacy and hyphenation. When reading, one can clearly know what the author is talking about. This book is aimed at readers who already have at least basic reading skills.
The second level of reading is inspectional reading. The purpose is to quickly read and master the best and most important content of the book in the shortest possible time. This level is based on the fact that readers already have the first level of reading ability, and readers who aim to improve their comprehension must master the reading methods of this level.
There are two stages of inspectional reading:
The first stage is systematic skimming or rough reading, using the most economical method to understand the structure of a book, and judging whether the book is worth the time to read carefully. When you get a book, first look at the title page, preface, table of contents page, index, and publisher's introduction of the book. Pick a few passages that relate to the topic and read, paying attention to the basic pulse of the topic, and the three or four pages at the end of the book that contain ideas that the author considers both new and important.
The second stage is superficial reading. When faced with a difficult book, read it from beginning to end. Don’t stop to inquire or think about something you don’t understand, and understand the content of the book.
In completing the inspectional reading, the reader completes four questions :
(1) What is this book about? Find out the theme of this book, how the author develops this theme in sequence, and how to gradually decompose the core theme into subordinate key issues.
(2) What did the author say in detail, and how did he say it? Identify key ideas, statements and arguments. These combine to form the particular message the writer wants to convey.
(3) Does the book make sense? Does it all make sense, or does it partially make sense? After reading and understanding a book, you know the author's thoughts, and you should make your own judgment for this book.
(4) What does this book have to do with you? If the book gives you information, ask what the information means. If this book inspires you, find out related, deeper meanings or suggestions, and get more enlightenment.
After answering these four questions, the two steps of inspectional reading have been completed. At this time, you can already know the basic structure and overall content of a book. But this is not the end. Reading without going through the third level of reading analysis is not really understanding a book.
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02
How to read a book through analysis
When reading, many people will encounter the situation that no matter how long they spend reading and how serious they are, they still cannot understand what a book is about. It's like a person who is close to you, no matter how long you spend with him, you can't see him through. In fact, this is not because people are difficult to understand or books are difficult to understand, but because we lack the ability to see through. If you want to read a book thoroughly, you need to reach the third level of reading - analytical reading.
The purpose of analytical reading is to chew the best and most important content of the book slowly and repeatedly chew its deep meaning within a relatively long reading time. Analytical reading is comprehensive reading, complete reading, or high-quality reading, which is the best way readers can do.
Analytical reading is divided into three stages. At this level of reading, readers should hold on to a book and read until the book becomes a part of themselves.
The first stage of analytical reading: finding out what a book is about.
(1) Classify according to the type and theme of the book. You must know what kind of book you are reading, preferably before you start reading. At the beginning, use inspectional reading to skim through the book to get a preliminary understanding of the book.
(2) Use the shortest words to explain what the whole book is about. Find out the theme or point of the book, guess what the author wants to do, and tell the general idea of the book.
(3) List the main parts in sequence and relevance. List the outline of the whole book, and also outline the outlines of the individual sections. This one underscores the complexity of a book. A complete book is also a complete individual. When readers grasp the whole of the book, they will immediately grasp the important parts. And these important parts also need perspective reading and in-depth understanding.
(4) Identify the problem the author wants to solve. The author of a book must have one or more questions when he starts writing, and the content of this book is the answer to these questions. It is the reader's responsibility to identify precisely these issues from the book and to organize them in order of importance.
At this stage, the reader can answer the first question posed to a book: what is the book in general about.
The second stage of analytical reading: interpreting the content rules of a book.
(5) Interpret the author's keywords and reach a consensus with him. Find out those words that are important, and confirm the meaning of these words when they are used, and interpret the content and information. For example, some words used by the author in a special way, or words emphasized by the author, and some technical terms.
(6) From the most important sentences, grasp the author's important theme. The most important sentence is the part that states the author's judgment throughout the discourse. There are also some important sentences that will appear at the beginning or end of the paragraph, similar to the topic sentences learned in student days when looking for articles.
(7) Know what the author's argument is, find out the relevant sentences from the content, and then reconstruct it. Find the passages in the book that explain the important arguments, and sort out the order of the relevant passages.
(8) Find out the author's answer. Identify which problems the author has addressed and which ones have not. Then judge which are the problems that the author knows he has not solved.
At this stage, readers can answer the second question posed to a book: What is the detailed content of this book? How did the author write it?
The third stage of analytical reading: Commenting on a book's rules as if communicating knowledge.
Reading a book is a dialogue between the author and the reader. The reader makes judgments and comments on what the author teaches, and deserves praise or criticism. The most learning reader is also the most critical reader. Readers must know how to judge a book, be able to respond to a book at the end, and try to organize their own thoughts on the issues discussed by the author.
A．General Rules of Wisdom Etiquette
(9) Don't criticize lightly unless you have completed the outline structure and can interpret the whole book. Don't say you agree, disagree, or hold off on commenting until you've said: "I get it!" Agreeing or disagreeing requires effort to judge, rather than blindly agreeing or criticizing rudely.
(10) Don't be competitive, you must argue to the end. When you disagree with the author's point of view, express your opinion rationally and do not argue or argue unreasonably. In addition, readers should find reasons to support their views.
(11) Before making a comment, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can distinguish the difference between real knowledge and personal opinion. Respect the difference between knowledge and personal opinions, and find out the theoretical basis before making any judgments.
B．Special Criteria for Critical Views
When a reader understands a book but disagrees with the author, the reader can also debate without prejudice the parts of the book that he disagrees with the author. The book proposes four ways to comment on a book from the author's opposing point of view. When making these four comments, readers should avoid falling into an emotional or prejudiced state.
(12) Evidence of insufficient knowledge of the author. It means that the author lacks some knowledge related to the problem he wants to solve.
(13) Prove that the author's knowledge is wrong. It means that the author's philosophy is incorrect, such as lack of knowledge.
(14) PROVE THE AUTHOR IS ILLOGICAL. It means that the author's reasoning is absurd, such as lack of coherence, or inconsistent.
(15) Demonstrate that the author's analysis and reasons are incomplete. It means that the author has not solved all the problems he raised at the beginning, or has not been able to make good use of the information at hand, and has not seen the meaning and crisscross relationship between them.
Before making these comments, the reader is cautioned that not everything in a book can be deficient or wrong, nor can it be all illogical. Readers making critical comments point out problems with the author and give reasons for what they say.
At this stage, the reader can answer the third and fourth questions posed to a book: Is it true? Does it make sense?
Using the methods and rules proposed in the three stages of analytical reading to read a book carefully instead of superficially reading a large number of books is the ideal state that a good reader can achieve.
Of course, many books are worth intensive reading. But there are many more books just a glance away. To be a good reader, one must know how to use different reading skills to read according to the characteristics of a book.
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03
The Ultimate Goal of Reading: Thematic Reading
The last and highest level of reading is thematic reading, that is, reading several books about a certain similar concept at the same time, summarizing and comparing the concepts in them, and proposing new ideas beyond the knowledge in these books. This is the most complex and systematic reading of all.
When doing topical reading, the reader reads a number of books, lists the connections between the books, and presents a theme that all the books touch on. With the help of these books, the topic reader has to construct a topic analysis that may not be mentioned in any book. Therefore, thematic reading is the most active and labor-intensive kind of reading, but it is also the most effective kind of reading.
There are two stages in topic reading:
One is an observational study in the preparatory stage , where you design a tentative bibliography on the topic you want to study, and you can refer to library catalogs, expert advice, and bibliographic indexes in books. Go through all the books in this bibliography, determine which ones are relevant to the topic, and develop a clear idea of the topic.
It is a preparation for reading on a topic, and it is by no means a book involved in a particular problem. Therefore, before you start, decide which books you are going to study.
The other stage is to officially enter the topic reading and start reading all the books collected in the first stage. At this stage, the second level of reading mentioned above - inspection reading is the main tool or means for readers to do thematic reading.
(1) Find the relevant chapter. In topical reading, the established topic is the primary focus, not the book read. Here, the purpose of reading is to solve the problem, not simply read the book. Therefore, the first step in topic reading should be to use the inspectional reading method to determine the chapters related to the topic.
(2) Lead the author to reach a consensus with you. This step should be up to you to build its consensus, which means forcing the author to use your language, not his. This set of language should help us understand all authors and solve our problems.
(3) Clarify the problem. List some questions that can make our problem more clear, and then let the author answer these questions. The order of the questions is related to the theme, from the concept or phenomenon being studied, to how these concepts or phenomena are discovered or manifested, and finally to what impact the preceding questions will have. At this step, all authors should be able to answer these questions. While the answer may not be the same, that's exactly what the next step is about.
(4) Define the topic. Organize and display the author's different opinions on each issue next to each topic. There may not necessarily be a certain issue between or among the various authors. Sometimes it takes an interpretation of the author's views on matters that are not his primary concern to construct such an issue.
(5) Analysis and discussion. Arrange the questions and topics in order to highlight themes. Put issues with more commonality before those with less commonality. The relationship between the various issues should also be clearly defined.
At this point, the topic reading is complete. As mentioned earlier, thematic reading is the most active reading. Readers actively seek answers from books based on some kind of confusion or problems that need to be solved urgently. And this is to regard reading as a kind of life guide, used to guide our life course.
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There is an old quiz to help people find the books that mean the most to them. The quiz goes like this: If you were warned that you were going to spend the rest of your life on an uninhabited desert island, or at least a very long time, and assuming you had time to do some preparation and bring some actually useful items to the island, would you still If you were to take ten books with you, which ten would you choose?
Making such a book list is actually very instructive, because it can help you find out which books you most want to read and read again. Do you learn a little bit more about yourself when you imagine yourself cut off from a world without entertainment, without information, without general things to understand? This isolated island has no TV, no radio, and no library, just you and ten books.
In a way, in reality, we are no different from people exiled on a desert island. The challenges we face are all challenges of finding out the inner resources to live a better human life.
The author of "How to Read a Book" believes that there is a limit to the growth of the body, but there is no limit to the development of the mind. The mind does not stop growing just because it dies at a certain age, it only loses its power to increase skill and understanding when it loses vitality and becomes rigid.
Active reading is not only useful for reading itself, it is not only helpful for our work or career, but also helps our minds maintain vitality and growth.
The core of any reading level beyond basic reading is that readers try to ask questions and then find answers as much as possible. This is the most important principle in active reading.
To read for the purpose of improving comprehension, one must really understand a book. To truly fully understand a book, you must make the book a part of yourself.
Reading is a lifetime thing, it is never too late to start, the most important thing is to start.