How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

ruheyuedu

$15.00

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

$15.00

Most People Read. Few People Truly Understand.

There's a difference between reading for information and reading for understanding. Most of us were never taught the second kind. How to Read a Book changes that.

First published in 1940 and completely revised in 1972, this landmark work by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren has sold over half a million copies and remains the definitive guide to intelligent, active reading. Whether you're tackling philosophy, history, science, literature, or practical guides, this book gives you the tools to extract real meaning from any text.

"Explains not just why we should read books, but how we should read them. It's masterfully done." — Fareed Zakaria, CNN

The Four Levels of Reading

Elementary Reading — The foundation: decoding words and sentences
Inspectional Reading — Systematic skimming to grasp a book's structure and argument
Analytical Reading — Deep, thorough engagement with a text to fully understand it
Syntopical Reading — Reading multiple books on the same subject and building your own informed view

What You'll Learn

How to judge a book by its cover — and when to go deeper
How to X-ray a book and extract the author's core argument
How to read critically and actively, not just passively
Genre-specific techniques for fiction, poetry, history, science, philosophy, and social science

About the Authors

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) was an American philosopher, educator, and author — a passionate advocate for liberal education and director of the Great Books of the Western World program, dedicated to making great philosophy accessible to everyone.

Charles Van Doren (1926–2019) was an American academic, author, and editor who collaborated closely with Adler on the 1972 revision of this book, enriching it with modern educational frameworks. He served for many years as Vice President of Encyclopædia Britannica.