Liberty Unchained

How to Read a Book

The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

By Mortimer J. Alder & Charles Van Doren

How to Read a Book is, as the title notes, a book about reading books in an intelligent manner.

The authors start out by covering what they believe to be the purposes of reading: Reading for information and reading for understanding.

From there, they give a quick summary of what they classify as the four levels of reading:

• Elemental Reading
• Inspectional Reading
• Analytical Reading
• Syntopical Reading

Elemental reading is the most basic level of reading, consisting of 4 stages itself. Often, those who are considered to read well never progress past elemental reading and a good percentage of people do not even get to the fourth stage of reading, which simply consists of developing the first three stages.

Inspectional reading consists of being able to quickly determine various information about the book via a quick inspection or skimming. Some people learn aspects of this type of reading, though it is not often taught in schools. It is a good way to quickly analyze a book so that you can tell whether it might be worth your time to read it.

Analytical consists of categorizing a book, distilling its message, considering the author, constructing criticism, agreeing or disagreeing with the author, and using a variety of aids in ones reading as necessary. While those who read quite a bit tend to eventually develop these skills, I found the straight-forward method of laying these items out to be quite refreshing.

Syntopical reading is the art of reading about a topic via a variety of sources, considering the arguments and ideas with them, and then using that information to make ones own decisions on the topic, perhaps even one that is different from all of those offered. It relies heavily on inspectional reading for paring down sources to a manageable list of books that have something meaningful to say.

The authors provide excellent insight into areas of reading into which those of us familiar with them have generally figured out via trial and error while using good amounts of time to do so. Had I read this book when I was ten, a lot of school assignments would have become quite a bit simpler. Indeed, a lot of the learning I have done on my own through the years would have taken less time as well.

I learned a few new things from this book even though I have been an avid reader since an early age. I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to improve their reading as it covers a lot of ground that is rarely, if ever, taught explicitly in the public schools.