How to Read a Book

With half a million copies in print, How to Read a Book is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader, completely rewritten and updated with new material.

A CNN Book of the Week: “Explains not just why we should read books, but how we should read them. It’s masterfully done.” –Farheed Zakaria

Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to “judge a book by its cover,” and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the author’s message from the text.

Also included is instruction in the different techniques that work best for reading particular genres, such as practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science works.

Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests you can use measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension, and speed.

Table of Contents

Part One: The Dimensions of Reading

Chapter 1: The Activity and Art of Reading

Chapter 2: The Levels of Reading

Chapter 3: The First Level of Reading: Elementary Reading

Chapter 4: The Second Level of Reading: Inspectional Reading

Chapter 5: How to Be a Demanding Reader

Part Two: The Third Level of Reading: Analytical Reading

Chapter 6: Pigeonholing a Book

Chapter 7: X-raying a Book

Chapter 8: Coming to Terms with an Author

Chapter 9: Determining an Author’s Message

Chapter 10: Criticizing a Book Fairly

Chapter 11: Agreeing or Disagreeing with an Author

Chapter 12: Aids to Reading

Part Three: Approaches to Different Kinds of Reading Matter

Chapter 13: How to Read Practical Books

Chapter 14: How to Read Imaginative Literature

Chapter 15: Suggestions for Reading Stories, Plays, and Poems

Chapter 16: How to Read History

Chapter 17: How to Read Science and Mathematics

Chapter 18: How to Read Philosophy

Chapter 19: How to Read Social Science

Part Four: The Ultimate Goals of Reading

Chapter 20: The Fourth Level of Reading: Syntopical Reading

Chapter 21: Reading and the Growth of the Mind

Appendix A: A Recommended Reading List

Appendix B: Exercises and Tests at the Four Levels of Reading

Review

“These four hundred pages are packed full of high matters which no one solicitous of the future of American culture can afford to overlook.” — Jacques Barzun

“It shows concretely how the serious work of proper reading may be accomplished and how much it may yield in the way of instruction and delight.” ― The New Yorker

“‘There is the book; and here is your mind.’ Adler and Van Doren’s suggestions on how to connect the two will make you nostalgic for a slower, more earnest, less trivial time.” — Anne Fadiman

About the Author

Dr. Mortimer J. Adler was Chairman of the Board of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, Honorary Trustee of the Aspen Institute, and authored more than fifty books. He died in 2001.

Dr. Charles Van Doren earned advanced degrees in both literature and mathematics from Columbia University, where he later taught English and was the Assistant Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research. He also worked for Encyclopedia Britannica in Chicago.