Introducing the Syntopical Book Club

During a casual coffee chat with some friends a few weeks ago. One of them mentioned they are part of a book club. My immediate reaction was "I would never join a book club." Well not in the way most of them are structured anyway. The idea of everyone reading the same book for discussion after a period of time seemed to be an inefficient use of time (caveat - I mainly read non-fiction).

Instead I suggested what would a book club look like that I actually would like to be part of. Starting with the principle of syntopical reading (see details below), I suggested the following structure for a Syntopical Book Club:

The Syntopical Book Club

1) Limit to 3-4 people

2) Brainstorm a list of topics people in the group would like to get smarter on, e.g AI, happiness, habit-forming, blockchain, etc...

3) Pick a topic and choose the 3-6 top rated books and MOOCs on that topic and assign 1-2 unique ones for each person to read/listen to.

4) At the end of 2-3 weeks, meet for 2-3 hours and each person has to bring a hardcopy (or digital if preferred) of their detailed summary of the book/MOOC they read. Detailed means key takeaways, chapter by chapter and then a overall summary of key ideas, questions or insights coming out of their reading. Each person takes turns going through and sharing this detailed summary where people can interactively ask questions/discuss. At the end of all the sharing - everyone goes around and summarizes that they took away from all the summaries.

The Result

As an example, the first topic the three of us decided to do on the spot was "Gratitude." Each of us read one of the following: Attitudes of Gratitude, Coursera MOOC “Positive Psychology” By Martin E.P. Seligman, “The Way of the Monk” by Gaur Gopal Das. By the end of our 3 hour discussion, we came away feeling we had a PhD in practicing Gratitude.

Background to Syntopical Reading

In 1940, Mortimer Adler wrote the classic,?How to Read a Book. He says there are four levels of reading where the ultimate is syntopical or reading multiple books on a single subject where you compare, contrast and question them.

1. Elementary?— Basic reading
2. Inspectional?— Reading with highlights in mind.
3. Analytical?— Take detailed notes, summarize things, look up references, ask questions.
4. Syntopical?— Read multiple books on a single subject. Compare and contrast the books and question any gaps or understand inconsistencies. It has the highest form of intentionality.