Book Review: "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

You can probably imagine how much I enjoyed reading this book, right? I have often loved books about books and books about reading because they offer us insight into all the different methods of reading we can use. It also makes more bookworms known to us. I was once thinking about writing a book about the experiences of reading, sort of like my 'reading experiences' article. However, I don't think I would know where to start. Be that as it may, I have enjoyed reading books like this one and A Passion for Books which I'm sure has already come out in review form. So let's take a look at How to Read a Book and what it can teach us about the different reading methods we come across in our lives.

The authors of this book frame reading not as a passive pastime but as a dialogue between the author and the reader. Reading is an art that requires attention and precision, something that requires comprehension and concentration. It cannot simply be done, but it has to be actively learned and improved over time. The goal is never just to absorb information but it is to improve thinking skills and create a habit of asking the author questions of their text. Of course, I hate people who just 'absorb content' and don't bother to feel anything or make any meaningful response - and this is where AI seems to be going. We see a lot of people supporting it from the realm of the self-help, focusing on the fact that they can 'optimise' or some other stupid b-rate business word they've used wrong. But the truth is, it doesn't do anything for you that way and so, you've wasted your time.

There are also four levels of reading with the very first one being called 'elementary'. It focuses on knowing what the words say on the page and being able to decipher them to know how the story is going. This is something that we have seen that many Gen-Z kids and Gen-Alpha kids are struggling to do and in the wake of the AI-bro I can honestly say, it is not going to be good for them. The second stage is inspectional reading in which the reader makes the decision to peer beneath the surface a bit. Then we have analytical readers who make evaluations of their readings in a critical and meaningful way. The final stage is the syntopical reader, who makes connections between texts in order to create even deeper meanings about themes and ideas - something that is more philosophical than we tend to realise.

Talking about making connections between texts, there is a very similar analysis done by Terry Eagleton in his book How to Read Literature in which he too, identifies the major players of a book and teaches the reader how to see them in numerous ways to create layers and depths of implicit meaning. It's a great book and you should check it out if you're interested in reading in any way, shape or form.

One thing I found fascinating (mainly because I'm going to try this skill) is called 'superficial reading' in which you would go through a difficult passage without stopping for reflection or a dictionary in order to grasp the general meaning of it. Then, after doing so, you come back to it later and re-read because now you have a general context. The thought is that this would build layers of context instead of having to stop and reflect every few sentences. This could be quite useful for an anthology of essays, but if you've ever seen me read one, I've been told that I do this weird thing every ten to fifteen minutes where I will stare, wide-eyed, at the wall. I'm just trying to process everything and it looks very odd. Could I do this new method of superficial reading to stop that from happening? Yes. Will I try? Perhaps. I want to see if it works more than anything.

Another thing I enjoyed learning about was my own reading style in terms of how I tend to write my reviews. I do something that the book refers to as 'determining arguments'. It is where you identify major components of the book and express them in your own words with your opinions featured within as well. With my book reviews, I usually have my phone or my laptop to make quick notes if I need them, mainly in bullet points. These often include anything I have found particularly interesting or something I find is worth mentioning because it is important. For example: for this book I got down the four different reading levels and what they were, with quick definitions next to them. This means I don't have to go back and forth through the book when writing the review, but it also gives me something on hand to critique and think about when expressing my ideas and linking the list to real world contexts.

From reading speed and techniques for guiding concentration to how certain genres should be read, this book gives a great eye to critical details and would be a large help to anyone who is struggling with reading. I would say that the writing style is more readable than a lot of people think it is. This is not a book for academic study, but rather one for learning and improving. I am surprised it is not being used more widely especially in our current downward spiral of reading for pleasure when it comes to the younger generations.