"How to Read a Book" by Adler and Van Doren (1972) - Book Review

Yesterday, on October 1 2018, I liked and commented a LinkedIn post where Dr Aniruddha Malpani shared some tips for maximizing the value of a book. Some of these tips made me recall the lessons I have learned from the book "How to Read a Book", by Adler and Van Doren (1972). Dr Malpani, in the same post, invited readers to write reviews of the books they have read and share them on LinkedIn. This is helpful for the reader, whom can therefore practice the fine art of synthesizing copious amount of complex information, and helpful for those whom read the review, as they can learn from it.

Dr Malpani, and other readers with whom I discussed the art of reading for learning purposes, saw "How to Read a Book" as a masterpiece source of knowledge for helping readers to become better learners.

What did this discussion lead to? To this very blog post you are reading. I was in fact invited to share my review of "How to Read a Book" with the LinkedIn community. Nonetheless, as we should practice what we preach (or "like", when applied to appreciations spread in social media), I would have written this small piece sooner or later anyhow, but probably with slower pace and more overthinking.

I shaped the review in a Q&A format, as if I would have interviewed myself. Keep in mind that this does not intend to be a comprehensive review chapter by chapter. It aims instead at highlighting aspects that a potential reader of the book "How to Read a Book" (aka, yourself reading this very blog post) finds helpful for starting reading actively (which is something that has been discussed in the aforementioned LinkedIn post). Naturally, this potential reader of "How to Read a Book" has to trust the fact that I have actually learned the craft of how to read a book.

It goes without saying that if you want to share your first book-review blog post on LinkedIn, "How to Read a Book" is a pretty challenging book to begin with.

Book review

Who are the authors of "How to Read a Book"?

One might wonder the reason behind this question. The answer is: knowing who the author of a book is and where he/she comes from (background, life experiences, agenda) helps you to understand the book itself. This automatically became the first lesson learned from "How to Read a Book" that I am sharing in this book review, although it was not explicitly expressed in "How to Read a Book" in the same way I did now.

The first author is Mortimer J. Adler (1902 - 2001), who was an American philosopher, editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica and founder of the Institute for Philosophical Research. The second author is Charles Van Doren (1926- ), who was an American academic and writer. He also was editor for the Encyclopedia Britannica, became the vice president of it later and was a member of the Institute for Philosophical Research. 

An illustrious background that sets the expectation from "How to Read a Book" even higher that you might have had before, and whose extent I believe you will find legitimate after you read this classic piece.

Why should you read "How to Read a Book"?

"How to read a Book"'s lessons well apply to non-fiction readers who want to read with purpose. Note: the book contains a small section about fictions reading, although I did not find it fitting the overall frame and intentions of the book. Becoming better readers means becoming better learners, and your learning proficiency depends on the quality of your reading. The "quality" variable depends on the specific books you choose in relation to your learning goals and how you read those books. Reading takes time, and you want to make sure that you are investing your time wisely. Adler and Van Doren satisfy two main needs that a reader has: learning how to read well and knowing what to read in order to promote "the growth of the mind" (as quoted in the book).

About the "how-well" part: "How to Read a Book" provides a framework that helps you convert the sheer groups of letters, or ideograms, you read into concepts and facts that are made to stick, and to be used when needed.

About the "what to read": Appendix A of "How to Read a Book" reports a list of 137 books belonging to either Western literature or Western philosophical tradition that, according to the two authors, "anyone should choose to take with him to his own desert island". For example, Aristotle's Works, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Planck's Where is Science going? are some of the masterpieces that belong to the recommended reading list.

What does "How to Read a Book" offer?

How to Read a Book gives you a frame of mind for getting the most out of whatever non-fiction read. This book provides a set of strategies and techniques for skimming, analyzing, synthesizing information within a book and comparing it across different books. The book investigates three levels of reading:

• Elementary, named also "inspectional", which refers to a systematic skimming of the book
• Analytical, whereby the reader reads for the sake of understanding and is actively engaged with the book or, better said, the author of it.
• Syntopical (comparative), whereby the readers reads several books that share a commonality and places them in relation to one another.

The book focuses on the analytical level for the most. It is the reader who has to decide which book or part of it has to be read with which level of reading. To express this point, Adler and Van Doren quoted Francis Bacon who stated "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” ...And then the authors continue with "Reading a book analytically is chewing and digesting it".

What are the highlights that I found most beneficial to include in my reading habits?

Looking back to what I literally highlighted in the book, I found a few key lessons learned that I am happy to share. I'll start with two simple tips within the chapter about elementary reading.

1. Reading the preface in order to get for whom the book is designed and the author's goal. This is important, since knowing the intended readers allows you to understand whether you should spend time reading the book.
2. Skimming the table of contents to get a sense of the structure of the books and key topics.

Note: the chapter contains much more tips than only these two. Doing what suggested in point 1 and 2 allows you to place the book in a specific shelf of your mental bookshelf. This comes helpful for the syntopical reading as well.

If the book you are reading is the one you want to read analytically, then, the authors state the core prescription for active reading.

"Ask questions while you read—questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading. [...] "There are four main questions you must ask about any book.

I will quote the questions that Adler and Van Doren prescribed verbatim in order not to alter their nature as I interpret them.

1. What is the book about as a whole? The answer to this question tells what the leading theme of the book is and its sub-themes.

2. What is being said in detail, and how? The answer to this question tells what the author's position (e.g., thesis) is and what ideas and arguments he provides in order to support it.

3. Is the book true, in whole or part? Adler and Van Doren stated "You cannot answer this question until you have answered the ?rst two. You have to know what is being said before you can decide whether it is true or not. When you understand a book however, you are obligated, if you are reading seriously, to make up your own mind. Knowing the author’s mind is not enough".

I could not agree more.

4. What of it? The answer to this question tells how important and significant the information you now know is, and whether you need to seek further information elsewhere.

To conclude, imagine active reading as a probing process whereby you ask yourself these four questions throughout the read and record your answers on the book pages themselves, on a post-it, on a document, etc.

What did I like the most?

Being an academic researcher myself, I found the chapter about syntopical reading (reading different books on the same subjects) helpful. Furthermore, the two authors even specify the peculiarity of reading a non-fiction within a specific domain, like mathematics, history, philosophy and social science. This tells something about the impressive breath of knowledge owned by Adler and Van Doren.

The authors repeat the same concept of active reading over and over, but I found this repetition helpful as it serves to consolidate the lessons to be learned.