How to Read a Book
Book

How to Read a Book

The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
Touchstone, 1972
First Edition: 1940
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

According to the late professors Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, schools don’t teach the higher-level reading skills you need to engage with and enjoy both informational and enlightening literature. You also need such skills to tackle books you might at first think are beyond your understanding or energy. Those very books, the authors say, ultimately provide the most profound, lasting insights. This manual outlines a systematic approach to help you build and sustain new reading abilities. These skills will help you connect with the most difficult, complex or multi-level works. First published in 1940, this revised edition radiates an enjoyable, rare tweedy-professor ambiance. In keeping with the biases of an earlier era, every pronoun is “he” and the prime reading list from the European and American canon has only two women (Jane Austen and George Eliot). Anachronisms duly noted, this clear manual still will serve any reader pursuing personal growth and excellence. Executives, managers and entrepreneurs will especially benefit from increasing their reading comprehension and retention.

Summary

Skillful Reading

When you’re curled up with a good book, reading can feel relaxing and effortless. For many people, however, a book is just a first-class ticket to slumberland. But a wondrous alternative awaits – even for reluctant readers. You can learn to embrace reading at a more skillful level that offers much greater rewards, including knowledge, self-awareness and inspiration.

When you read skillfully, you read “actively.” You’re awake and focused. Instead of passively absorbing information, you collaborate with the author. The writer provides the material, but you analyze it, argue with it and question it. Instead of merely adding to your store of information, you increase your comprehension of yourself and your world.

“Elementary Reading”

Unfortunately, most readers never learn how to gain this level of joy and wisdom from reading. Reading education in the US focuses on the skills needed at a beginner’s elementary reading level – the ability to recognize words, comprehend sentences and derive the meaning of new words from context. Once you can read at that level, you’re pretty much on your own. Most high schools and colleges in the US offer...

About the Authors

Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001) was a philosopher and a professor at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. Charles Van Doren (1926-2019) taught at Columbia University and the University of Connecticut and was assistant director of the Institute of Philosophical Research.

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