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How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to…
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How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (A Touchstone book) (original 1940; edition 1972)

by Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren

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364670,403 (4.11)84
How to Read a Book, first published in 1940, is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader—a living classic. Now it has been completely rewritten and updated.This book will teach you about the various levels of reading and how to achieve them, from elementary reading and systematic skimming to inspectional reading and speed reading. Learn how to pigeonhole a book, x-ray it, extract the author's message, and criticize. The authors offer different reading techniques for various types of books, and finally, a recommended reading list and reading tests for measuring your own progress in reading skills, comprehension, and speed.… (more)
Member:CheshireOcelot
Title:How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (A Touchstone book)
Authors:Mortimer J. Adler
Other authors:Charles Van Doren
Info:Touchstone (1972), Edition: Revised, Paperback, 426 pages
Collections:Your library, Finished in 2015
Rating:***
Tags:non-fiction

Work Information

How to Read a Book {original} by Mortimer J. Adler (Author) (1940)

Recently added byprivate library, LICC, CADesertReader, Mewburn.net, colombini, dpcaccamo, sherirawling, rbegley, D.T.Adams, SrMaryLea
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» See also 84 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 6 (next | show all)
reading and accessing information
  SrMaryLea | Aug 22, 2023 |
Adler's method is not how I read now, but it was a helpful start that taught me how to go beyond, "just reading," and learn to view texts as tools. ( )
  mykl-s | Dec 30, 2022 |
12/12/21
  laplantelibrary | Dec 12, 2021 |
This is the most overrated book I've read in a while. People rate it a "5/5", it's really a 2-3/5. It might be worthwhile if you don't know how to "read" well (as in, asking questions while reading, analyzing the book, comparing the viewpoints of multiple books), but if you're a reasonable human being, you already know this, and don't require hundreds of pages of needlessly verbose and condescending prose to explain it.

The authors get extra points for creating arbitrary and essentially worthless distinctions of multiple times, then indexing each of these on independent 4-part scales. This lets them say amazing things about reading the fourth type of book at the third level leads to the fourth point, etc.

Skip. There should be a worthwhile book about this topic, but this isn't it. ( )
  octal | Jan 1, 2021 |
From the back of the book: "It is the only self-improvement book I have ever read that did not make me want to go out and start improving things by assassinating the author."
1 vote ULC | Dec 1, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 6 (next | show all)
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To Mark and Arthur
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1
The Activity and Art of Reading
This is a book for readers and for those who wish to become readers.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Please distinguish Mortimer J. Adler's original work, How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education (1940), from his later Revised and Updated Edition co-authored with Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Best-Selling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information (1972). See Wikipedia on How to Read a Book.
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How to Read a Book, first published in 1940, is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader—a living classic. Now it has been completely rewritten and updated.This book will teach you about the various levels of reading and how to achieve them, from elementary reading and systematic skimming to inspectional reading and speed reading. Learn how to pigeonhole a book, x-ray it, extract the author's message, and criticize. The authors offer different reading techniques for various types of books, and finally, a recommended reading list and reading tests for measuring your own progress in reading skills, comprehension, and speed.

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