Book Review-How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading By Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

I bought this book many years ago with the intention to carefully absorb the wisdom of Adler and Van Doren. I had made several attempts, mainly picking and choosing sections of the book as it suited my purpose at that point in time. Presently, having some time on my hands, I tackled this tome this Summer.

It is not a monstrously long book, about 350 pages long, not including the appendices and end notes. The intimidating aspect of the book has everything to do with the reputation of the authors, as they are what was once known as public intellectuals. Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren are renowned philosophers whose credentials are publicly celebrated. I knew the contents would be densely packed, but I also knew that as careful and excellent writers, they sought to communicate first, rather than to impress.

I was immediately taken into the scholarly environment that they had set out to convey at the beginning. Chapter one simply and clearly lays out their intent and sets the reader’s expectations at a high level. This opening chapter gives the readers an exact outline of what they seek to convey. Not a word was wasted, not a false impression created.

The book is well structured and lays out an excellent roadmap for the reader to navigate. Every argument is carefully enumerated and easily tracked. There are four parts to the book, split into twenty-one chapters. Part III of the book, chapters thirteen to nineteen, is devoted to specific topics: math and sciences, history, philosophy, social sciences, et. al. and how to read these chapters analytically. I am saving Part III for later. My strategy for reading Part III is  to find the keys and identify the propositions in the manner that the authors had laid put in Part II, thus using the lessons learned from the book itself.

The authors divided reading into four levels: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and finally synoptical. Most of us had gone through the elementary level as we learned to read. Inspectional reading is something that some of us have learned to do if our chosen field of study involved massive amounts of reading, or if we are bibliophiles and consume massive amounts of books. Inspectional reading is what we do when we are sifting through the reading material that is laid out in front of us, be they for enjoyment, personal acquisition of knowledge, or for our vocations. It gives us a chance to sort through the reading material, identify those material that are pertinent to our interests, and allows us to formulate a reading strategy for each book. Elementary and inspectional reading is covered in Part I of the book.

Part II is devoted to the topic of analytical reading. Analytical reading is the type of reading that some of us do regularly. It is how we should be reading so that the readers are able to identify the  topic that the author is proposing and identify the arguments that the authors are making.  It is also how the readers should be reading to best ascertain our own opinions and critical judgements about the author’s intent. Analytical reading is the key to determining whether the authors was successful in communicating their key points through their propositions, whether their arguments are cogent and rational, and whether they are successful in laying out a complete vision of their subject. The authors devoted a significant number of pages to teach the readers on how to judge the author’s viewpoints and the effectiveness of the arguments without resorting to emotional reactions or calling upon the one’s habit to react impulsively. This is a perspicacious, prescriptive, and anticipatory decision, as most average readers will reflexively react procedurally without exercising their critical thinking ability and calling upon their analytical abilities.

Part IV is devoted to synoptical reading, a kind of reading that some people do, but they rarely call it synoptical reading. It is the practice of reading numerous books on the same subject. The motivation for the reader is to gain understanding of the subject, which may encompass numerous different books and authors,  rather than assuming that the knowledge resides in just a single book. The focus is on the subject rather than on a designated book. The tools that are taught in Part II for analytical reading are expanded and generalize as befitting the broad scope of reading.

My first reaction after I started reading the book was that I wish that I had read this book earlier in my life, it would have prevented the meandering path that my attention and my curiosity had been taken during my research life. Fortunately, all is not lost because much of what was explicitly stated in the book, particularly in Part II, had somehow been integrated into my reading habits implicitly through my own reading and analysis experiences. There were numerous moments of recognition and proud realization as I read through this book, although there were also many forehead slapping moments of enlightenment. I also started to consciously implement the lessons that I had learned on the fly as I was reading. The result is that my reading acuity has improved discernably as I learned in real time.

This improvement was particularly significant as I was reading synoptically. The insights from the book helped me to avoid going into a death spiral of confusion as I tried to read synoptically on a topics by reading different books and authors. This is the trap that a reader will often fall into when reading synoptically as the focus needs to necessarily be on the topic rather then a book and author. My synoptic reading skill has improved markedly even though I was trying to change my reading habits in real time as I read the book.

While the nature of the writing in this book is dense with details and was as challenging as I had expected from the authors, they had made their structure transparent to the reader to help ease the reader’s way through the material. They created hooks in the text for the reader to hang on to so that the readers can follow the prescribed methodology as the reader develops their reading strategy. Even as I became lost, I was able to recover the train of the argument simply and expediently because of the clarity of the writing and book structure.

Indeed, this book was as I had expected, delivering even more than as promised. While I still have a touch of regret about my own procrastination before reading this book, I am glad I finally had a chance to settle in and immerse myself.

I am convinced that a reader must be ready for the book, any book. I am glad I proved to be  ready now, after many years of dawdling. I still wonder if my comprehension of what I had read in the interim would have helped, I imagine that I could have gleaned more from all my readings if I could have absorbed the lessons of this book earlier in my life. My regret is assuaged by the fact that I might not have had the maturity to handle the lessons in a previous time and place. Indeed, it is better late than never.

I recommend this to all serious readers who are in search of knowledge