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How to Read a Book

[Length: around 1,500 words.  I ramble.  Content: tips for how to get the most out of what you read]

My friends know me as someone that's always reading.  But what does that reading entail, really?  Is it to read for entertainment?  To learn something new?  To fill time by any means?

To answer such questions, I thought it would be useful to describe my current process and goals when reading.  Reading comes in a surprising number of flavors, and I'm always interested in hearing others' processes and sharing my own.  I've been following my new and improved personal process for the past 2-3 months or so, and find that it helps me get much more out of each book that I end up reading in full.

Let's dig in.

My Goals

For the most part, I read to learn.  What does this look like?  Well, if I take the question literally, it looks like this:

This might give you some idea of what kind of reading I enjoy, and what I'll talk about in this post.  Yes, I mark up important passages in books for later review.  Yes, I primarily read nonfiction.  And three books is nothing - plenty more in my closet.  

My Process Inspirations

In describing my process, I remain forever grateful to the book "How to Read a Book" - the source of this title - by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren.

Heck, if you want to read that and skip this post, I won't judge.  It's an interesting one, if a bit long-winded at times.

Farnam Street's work - The Art of Reading and beyond - also remains an inspiration.  While I haven't taken their course yet, I almost certainly will sometime.

Some Terminology

Before I get underway, I want to highlight one concept from "How to Read a Book" - their conception of the different levels of reading.

Briefly, the 4 levels of reading are as follows:

  1. "Elementary reading" in which, if you can read this post, you have attained
  2. "Inspectional reading" in which a reader has a limited amount of time to learn what a book has to offer - if you had 15 minutes to an hour to learn about a book, you must prioritize on extracting information quickly, like from the table of contents, introduction and conclusion, etc
  3. "Analytical reading" in which a reader thoroughly reads through the content of a book, predominantly to gain an understanding of the book, its main theses, ideas, concepts, in addition to its basic categorization
  4. "Syntopical reading", in which a reader goes beyond the content of any one book, developing a higher-level understanding of multiple books within one domain; this includes comparing and contrasting authors' viewpoints within that domain

Another interesting callout here - they highlight, repeatedly, the idea that a reader should use different reading speeds depending on his or her goal.  While speed readers would have you attempt to read quickly regardless of the importance of content, Adler and Van Doren disagree.  Yes, do use your finger to help cut down on fixations and regressions.  No, do not simply speed through a sentence that's bolded and underlined and starred as if it was just as important as any other sentence in the book.  Yes, do prioritize speed sometimes, especially if you're trying to get a basic understanding of the book in a limited amount of time, like when doing an inspectional reading.  No, do not speed through a book as quickly as possible, instead taking the time every now and then to really chew through and summarize what you've read recently.

The Process

First, answer the basic question of what to read

The first step in any process is determining where to start.  Seriously, this is only one part of my reading queue:

For some of these books, I'm already familiar with the author.  For example, I've read Cialdini's Influence all the way through, so I can say with fair confidence that "Pre-Suasion" will be a good read.  Kohn's "Punished by Rewards" and Biglan's "The Nurture Effect" are, in some way, opposed to each other - they both extensively discuss behavioral modification concepts from different perspectives, and Biglan calls out Kohn's ideas as ones he wants to disprove.  Those two would be good to read together, or at least around the same time.  I've skimmed through some of Huizinga's "Homo Ludens - A Study of the Play-Element in Culture", and I find that his writing style and aversion to formal methods of study like anthropology and psychology make it unlikely to be a rewarding read for me.  (Especially since I have Stuart Brown's "Play - how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul" already in progress, which I think I'll find more evidence-based).

All of these instincts about different books guide my selection in what to read.  Having several possible books on my queue is not a bad thing - it means that each competes for attention, and if I'm finding that one book isn't quite what I thought it was, there's another on the queue that I've inspected and should be ready to learn from.

It should be clear, here, that this selection of what to read isn't a formal process, but there's still value in early categorization and selection of your reading material.

Next, start learning

If you didn't already do an inspectional reading of the book to have some high level understanding of it, now's the time.  If you can state the thesis of the book in your own words now, and still agree with that statement by the end of your reading, you're in good shape.

At this stage, I tend towards doing straight-through reads of books.  

As I go along, though, reading is an active process.  I'm underlining good sentences.  I'm writing in the margins.  I'm putting post-its on pages I want to return to for my recap.  I'm asking questions - "How can I apply this concept to my life?"  "How does this compare to the concept that author B wrote about?"  "Why did the author emphasize this point, rather than that one?"  "What are the author's assumptions that allow them to make this point?"  "Is the book true, in whole or in part?"  "If it's true, so what?"

Did you note that?  Reading is an active process.  This can't be emphasized enough.  You're not watching TV here, or a movie, or being forced into passivity.  To truly understand what the author is saying, you must grapple with their words.  You must be able to explain the concepts of the author in your own words.  You must be wide awake, paying attention.  Indeed, Adler and Van Doren say it well - "Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author.  It is the highest respect you can pay him or her" (page 49).

Consolidate what you learn

Now that you've done all that active reading, and you're done with a book, let in sink in for a bit.  We're in no rush here.  Your subconscious will happily consolidate some concepts for you, and the distance between the time you read a book and the time you review it will help you weed out some of the duds we all highlight in the moment.

After that time has passed - or if you're like me, maybe an extra month or two as well - it's time to review your marks and notes.  There's no need for anything formal - I prefer just writing on a blank sheet of paper and, in terms of organization, seeing whatever comes out.  Here's my notes from "Influence" as an example:

The point is, do consolidate and review what you've learned after some time away from the book.  For bonus points, follow the Feynman Technique for even greater mastery.

To Recap

While many of us may not think of reading in this way, there are many possible goals and methods in reading.  For this basic insight, I remain absolutely indebted to Adler and Doren's "How to Read a Book" - their work helped kick my informational reading into a higher gear.  Were it not for this book, I wouldn't have considered that there could be higher levels of reading to aim for.

If you share my goal in reading to learn, I encourage you to take notes as you go along - grab some post-it sticky tabs to mark important passages in the book.  Write in the margins.  Keep a personal diary and apply a higher-level understanding of the content to how it's been fitting into your life.  Try to teach someone the concepts you're learning.  When you're done with a book, grab a blank/unlined sheet of paper and make a mindmap of the most important notes you took.  Whatever works for you, do it - these are some of my tools for deepening my understanding of a book, but I'm sure you can come up with more.

Overall, that's what I've got.  I hope this post has been helpful for you.  Keep up the good reading!