How to Read a Book

The art of reading, in short, includes all of the same skills that are involved in the art of unaided discovery: keenness of observation, readily available memory, range of imagination, and, of course, an intellect trained in analysis and reflection. The reason for this is that reading in this sense is discovery, too—although with help instead of w

There are four main questions you must ask about any book.

Coming to Terms with an Author

In the light of these alternatives, your procedure should be as follows. First, try to determine whether the word has one or many meanings. If it has many, try to see how they are related.

The questions answered by inspectional reading are: first, what kind of book is it? second, what is it about as a whole? and third, what is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?

You will recall that that first question is: What is the book about as a whole?

How to Make a Book Your Own

The first level of reading we will call Elementary Reading.

With the help of the books read, the syntopical reader is able to construct an analysis of the subject that may not be in any of the books. It