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How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (A Touchstone book) Revised Edition

by Mortimer J. Adler (Author),
Charles Van Doren (Author)
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Charles Van Doren (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 488 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0671212094
ISBN-10: 0671212095
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Product Details

  • Series: A Touchstone book
  • Paperback: 426 pages
  • Publisher: Touchstone; Revised edition (August 15, 1972)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0671212095
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671212094
  • Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.1 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (488 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFoundational to all non-fictional reading
By Rob Taylor on December 9, 2000
Format: Paperback
"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested" (Francis Bacon). This is one of those books.

How to Read a Book is a classic guide to intelligent reading and my opinion is that it should be standard reading, particularly for the college-bound student. Don't let the title fool you. This book is not a simplistic review of what you learned in the second grade. The book is divided into four parts.

Part one includes what Adler calls the first two levels of reading: elementary and inspectional reading. In total he sets forth four levels of reading: elementary reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading and syntopical reading. He proceeds to tell us that reading is an active process since the teacher is not available to deliberate. In keeping with this activity we are told how to read faster while comprehending more, how to find answers to our questions from within the book and how to make the right kind of notes in the book.

Part two contains the third level of reading: analytical reading. "Reading a book analytically is chewing and digesting it" (p.19). We now learn how to determine the type of literature we are reading, what type of structure it has and we learn that we must come to grasp with the author's vocabulary. The point of all this is to understand the message of the author. If we are unable to state the author's message concisely in our own terms, we have learned nothing. Only after we first understand what the author is saying, can we begin criticize him fairly. Once we have read analytically, we can agree with the author, disagree with him or we can postpone judgment until we have learned more if we wish. Adler suggests that we do not consult other study helps until we first have read the book analytically.Read more ›
18 Comments 840 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsWhat Reading is Really All About
By Sunnye Tiedemann on June 28, 2002
Format: Paperback
As a book reviewer for the past 20 years, with hundreds of reviews in print and electronic media, I think I know a little about reading books. I was fascinated to find that Adler and Van Doren have, in HOW TO READ A BOOK, clearly articulated what I had discovered on my own.
Most people read at an elementary level. Common print media -- newspapers, magazines -- are geared to this first level, that of eighth or ninth grade. Reading at this level is simple and unsophisticated. It is a fairly simple procedure. As someone once said, "You just pick up a book and look at every word until you've seen them all."
The second level of reading is inspectional. Two steps are performed simultaneously. The reader skims, or pre-reads, by studying the title page, preface, table of contents, index, dust jacket and a chapter or two. He thumbs through the book, reading a bit here and there. Then he reads the entire book superficially without bothering whether he understands it or not. I might argue that if you don't understand what you're reading, you're not reading at all. However, this is the kind of reading I do when I'm selecting a book to review. It is just the beginning.
Adler and Van Doren argue that this kind of superficial reading can prepare a reader for enjoying more difficult works. "The tremendous pleasure that can come from reading Shakespeare, for example, was spoiled for generations of high school students who were forced to go through 'Julius Caesar,''As You Like It,' or 'Hamlet' scene by scene, looking up all the strange words in a glossary and studying all the footnotes," write the authors. "As a result, the never read a Shakespeare play. By the time they reached the end, they had forgotten the beginning and lost sight of the whole...Read more ›
12 Comments 1,052 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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3.0 out of 5 starsMostly Good Advice, But Pompously Wordy
By Camber on January 31, 2009
Format: Paperback
There's no doubt that effective reading is a skill which has to be developed through deliberate practice, and this book provides mostly good advice which should help develop that skill more quickly (but I don't agree with all of Adler's advice).

Adler's advice pertains to aspects such as doing preliminary reconaissance of a book by systematically skimming it, classifying the book by genre, identifying the author's aims, grasping the way the author uses terminology, distilling the central message of the book along with its implications and the structure of its supporting arguments, judging the book fairly, and drawing on multiple books on the same subject in order to reach a synoptic understanding of the subject. The main point is that reading books effectively comes down to reading them actively, motivated by a sincere desire to understand, learn, and grow; without that motivation, the reader is really just going through the motions and perhaps shouldn't even bother trying.

Readers who are already skilled will have picked up most or all of the strategies and techniques recommended by Adler on their own, through trial and error. Therefore, the value of the book is that it should expedite the development of this skill for less skilled readers, and it should reinforce (and validate) this skill for those who are already skilled readers.

All of this sounds pretty good, so why 3 stars? Because Adler has made the book much too long, with the result that his key points can easily get lost in his endless babbling, not to mention making the book very tedious to read. If Adler had cut out the fat and trimmed the book from 400 pages down to 100 pages, the book probably would have easily deserved 5 stars.Read more ›
9 Comments 160 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsGood book and pretty comprehensive

Good book but incredibly long considering it's a book on how to read a book quickly

Published 1 day ago by live the mission
4.0 out of 5 starsbut very good so far

Still reading...but very good so far.

Published 3 days ago by S. Rubain
5.0 out of 5 starsClearly a well thought through book

I must confess that I only did a quick skimming of the book. Nevertheless, I am already convinced that the approach recommended in this book can dramatically improve the personal... Read more

Published 18 days ago by Rajiv S.
5.0 out of 5 starsA necessity for everyone.

You don't know what you've been missing until you read this.

Published 22 days ago by AVID User
5.0 out of 5 starsLove that it is separated by topic

Love that it is separated by topic. If my son reads History today, I can have him read that section exclusively. Great book. He really likes it.

Published 1 month ago by Jennifer Johnson
5.0 out of 5 starsLifelong Skill

Reading is the quintessential meta-skill. This book convinces you that you don't possess this skill (and you probably don't) and hands you a manual. Read more

Published 1 month ago by josh
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Great book!

Published 2 months ago by abzee
3.0 out of 5 starsThis book is so slow and uneventful. I had ...

This book is so slow and uneventful. I had a hard time reading it and staying focused. It does have geat information, but is a bit out dated and can be shortened in my opinion

Published 2 months ago by michelle michalec
5.0 out of 5 starsA liberal Arts Education

This book is a liberal arts education all by itself.

The original book, published in 1940 or so stated that the purpose of a liberal arts education is to elevate you to... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Larry Giarth
3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

Physical appearance perfect, but I really don't care for the content much, personally.

Published 2 months ago by Marie

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