How to Read a Book

How to Read a Book, originally published in 1940, has become a rare phenomenon, a living classic. It is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader. And now it has been completely rewritten and updated., You are told about the various levels of reading and how HOWTO READA BOOKREVISED AND UPDATED EDITIONBYMORTIMER. ADLERANDLO HARLS VAN DORENComA TOUCHSTONe BOCCopyright 1940 by Mortimer Adlerrenewed 1967 by Mortimer J. AdlerCopyright o 1972 by Mortimer J. Adlerand Charles van dorenAll rights reservedincluding the right of reproductionin whole or in part in any formA Touchstone BookPublished by Simon d Schuster, IncSimon G Schuster Building, Rockefeller Center1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020TOUCHSTONe and colophon are registered trademarksof Simon b Schuster, IncOISBN0-671-21280Xoe. comSBN0671-212095Pbk.Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-8145IDesigned by Edith FowlerCONTENTSPrefacePART ONETHE DIMENSIONS OF READING1. The Activity and Art of Readingg3Active Reading 4. The Goals of Reading: ReadingInformation and Reading for Understanding 7. Reading as Learning: The Difference Between Learning byInstruction and Learning by Discovery 11.Presentand absent Teachers 142. The Levels of reading163. The First Level of Reading: Elementary Reading 21Stages of Learning to Read 24. Stages and Levels 26Higher Levels of Reading and Higher Education 28vi Contents5. How to Be a Demanding Reader45The Essence of Active Reading: The Four Basic Questions a Reader Asks 46. How to Make a book yourOwn 48. The Three Kinds of Note-making 51Forming the Habit of Reading 52. From Many Rulesto One habit 54PART TWOTHE THIRD LEVEL OF READINGANALYTICAL READING6. Pigeonholing a bookThe Importance of Classifying Books 60. What YouCan Learn from the title of a book 61. Practical vs.Theoretical Books 65. Kinds of Theoretical Books 707. X-raying a Book75Of Plots and Plans: Stating the Unity of a Book 78Mastering the Multiplicity: The Art of Outlining aBook 83. The Reciprocal Arts of Reading and Writ-ing 90. Discovering the Author's Intentions 92. TheFirst Stage of Analytical Reading 948. Coming to Terms with an Author96Words us. Terms 96. Finding the Key words 100Technical Words and Special Vocabularies 103. Finding the Meanings 1069. Determining an Author's MessageCOnSentences us. Propositions 117. Finding the Key sentences 121. Finding the Propositions 124. Finding128· Findi735Contents viiAgreeing or Disagreeing with an Author152Prejudice and Judgment 154. Judging the Author'sSoundness 156. Judging the Author's Completeness160. The Third Stage of Analytical Reading 16312. Aids to readin168The Role of Relevant Experience 169. Other Booksas Extrinsic Aids to Reading 172. How to Use Commentaries and Abstracts 174. How to Use ReferenceB00ks176· How to Usc a Dictionary 178· How toUse an Encyclopedia 182PART THREEAPPROACHES TO DIFFERENT KINDSOF READING MATTER13. How to Read Practical Books191The Two Kinds of Practical Books 193. The Role ofPersuasion 197. What Does Agreement Entail in theCase of a Practical Book? 199eral Rules for Reading Imaginative Literature ipe,20314. How to Read Imaginative LiteratureHow Not to Read Imaginative Literature 20415. Suggestions for Reading Stories, Plays, and Poems 215How to read stories217· A Note About Epics2·How to Read Plays 223A Note About Tragedy226. How to Read Lyric Poetry 22716. How to Read historThe Elusiveness of Historical Facts 235. Theories ofviii Contentsng the Problem of Mathematics 260. Handling theMathematics in Scientific Books 264. a Note onPopular science 267The Questions Philosophers Ask 271.Modern Philas 27018. How to Read Philosophyophy and the great Tradition 276. On PhilosophicalMethod 277 .On Philosophical Styles 280. Hints forReading Philosophy 285. On Making Up Your OwnMind290· A Note on Theology29l· How to readCanonical' Books 29319. How to Read Social Science296What Is Social Science? 297. The Apparent Ease ofReading Social Science 299. Difficulties of ReadingSocial Science 301 Reading Social Science Literature 304PART FOURTHE ULTIMATE GOALSOF READING20. The Fourth Level of Reading: Syntopical Reading 309The Role of Inspection in Syntopical Reading 318The Five Steps in Syntopical Reading 316. The Needfor Objectivity 323.An Example of an Exercise inSyntopical Reading: The Idea of Progress 325. TheSyntopicon and How to Use It 329. On the principles That Underlie Syntopical Reading 333. Summnary of Syntopical Reading 3351. Reading and the Growth of the mind337PREFACEHow to Read a Book was first published in the early monthsof 1940. To my surprise and, I confess, to my delight, it im-mediately became a best seller and remained at the top of thenationwide best-seller list for more than a year. Since 1940. ithas continued to be widely circulated in numerous printingsth hardcover and paperback and it has been translated intoother languages-French, Swedish, German, Spanish, and Italn. Why, then, attempt to recast and rewrite the book for thepresent generation of readers?The reasons for doing so lie in changes that have takenplace both in our society in the last thirty years and in thesubject itself. Today many more of the young men and womenwho complete high school enter and complete four years ofcollege; a much larger proportion of the population has bemcome literate in spite of or even because of the popularity ofradio and television. There has been a shift of interest fromthe reading of fiction to the reading of nonfiction. The edu-x Prefaceproficiency in this basic skill, and many of those efforts havescored some success at the level at which children are initiatedinto the art of reading. In addition, adults in large numbershave been captivated by the glittering promises made byspeed-reading courses-promises to increase their comprehension of what they read as well as their speed in reading itHowever, certain things have not changed in the last thirtyyears. One constant is that, to achieve all the purposes of reading, the desideratum must be the ability to read differentthings at different-appropriate-speeds, not everything at thegreatest possible speed. As Pascal observed three hundredyears ago,When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing. Since speed-reading has become a national fadthis new edition of How to Read a Book deals with the problem and proposes variable-speed-reading as the solution, theaim being to read better, always better, but sometimes slower,sometimes fasterAnother thing that has not changed, unfortunately, is thefailure to carry instruction in reading beyond the elementarylevel. Most of our educational ingenuity, money, and effort isspent on reading instruction in the first six grades. Beyondthat, little formal training is provided to carry students tohigher and quite distinct levels of skill. That was true in1939 when Professor James Mursell of Columbia University'sTeachers College wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthlyentitled" The Failure of the Schools. " What he said then. intwo paragraphs that I am now going to quote, is still trueDo pupils in school learn to read their mother tongue effec