How to Read a Book

How to Read a Book is a book by the American philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. Originally published in 1940, it was heavily revised for a 1972 edition, co-authored by Adler with editor Charles Van Doren. The 1972 revision gives guidelines for critically reading good and great books of any tradition. In addition, it deals with genres (including, but not limited to, poetry, history, science, and fiction), as well as inspectional and syntopical reading.

Overview of the 1972 edition How to Read a Book is divided into four parts, each consisting of several chapters.

Part 1: The Dimensions of Reading Here, Adler sets forth his method for reading a non-fiction book in order to gain understanding. He claims that three distinct approaches, or readings, must all be made in order to get the most possible out of a book, but that performing these three levels of readings does not necessarily mean reading the book three times, as the experienced reader will be able to do all three in the course of reading the book just once. Adler names the readings "structural", "interpretative", and "critical", in that order.

Structural stage: The first stage of analytical reading is concerned with understanding the structure and purpose of the book. It begins with determining the basic topic and type of the book being read, so as to better anticipate the contents and comprehend the book from the very beginning. Adler says that the reader must distinguish between practical and theoretical books, as well as determining the field of study that the book addresses. Further, Adler says that the reader must note any divisions in the book, and that these are not restricted to the divisions laid out in the table of contents. Lastly, the reader must find out what problems the author is trying to solve.

Interpretive stage: The second stage of analytical reading involves constructing the author's arguments. This first requires the reader to note and understand any special phrases and terms that the author uses. Once that is done, Adler says that the reader should find and work to understand each proposition that the author advances, as well as the author's support for those propositions.

Critical stage: In the third stage of analytical reading, Adler directs the reader to critique the book. He asserts that upon understanding the author's propositions and arguments, the reader has been elevated to the author's level of understanding and is now able (and obligated) to judge the book's merit and accuracy. Adler advocates judging books based on the soundness of their arguments. Adler says that one may not disagree with an argument unless one can find fault in its reasoning, facts, or premises, though one is free to dislike it in any case.

Part 2: The Third Level of Reading: Analytical Reading Adler explains for whom the book is intended, defines different classes of reading, and tells which classes will be addressed. He also makes a brief argument favoring the Great Books, and explains his reasons for writing How to Read a Book.

There are three types of knowledge: practical, informational, and comprehensive. He discusses the methods of acquiring knowledge, concluding that 1. practical knowledge, though teachable, cannot be truly mastered without experience, 2. that only informational knowledge can be gained by one whose understanding equals the author's, and 3. that comprehension (insight) is best learned from the person who first achieved said understanding – an "original communication" with the source of understanding.

The idea that communication directly from those who first discovered an idea is the best way of gaining understanding is Adler's argument for reading the Great Books; that any book that does not represent original communication is inferior, as a source, to the original, and that any teacher, save those who discovered the subject he or she teaches, is inferior to the Great Books as a source of comprehension.

Adler spends a good deal of this first section explaining why he was compelled to write this book. He asserts that very few people can read a book for understanding, but that he believes that most are capable of it, given the right instruction and the will to do so. It is his intent to provide that instruction. He takes time to tell the reader about how he believes that the educational system has failed to teach students the art of reading well, up to and including undergraduate, university-level institutions. He concludes that, due to these shortcomings in formal education, it falls upon individuals to cultivate these abilities in themselves. Throughout this section, he relates anecdotes and summaries of his experience in education as support for these assertions.

Part 3: Approaches to Different Kinds of Reading Matter In this part, Adler briefly discusses the differences in approaching various kinds of literature and suggests reading several other books. He explains a method of approaching the Great Books – read the books that influenced a given author prior to reading works by that author – and gives several examples of that method.

Part 4: The Ultimate Goals of Reading The last part of the book covers the fourth level of reading: syntopical reading. At this stage, the reader broadens and deepens his or her knowledge on a given subjecte.g., love, war, particle physics, etc.by reading several books on that subject. In the final pages of this part, the author expounds on the philosophical benefits of reading: "growth of the mind", fuller experience as a conscious being...

Reading list (1972 edition)

Appendix A in the 1972 edition provided the following recommended reading list:

Homer – Iliad, Odyssey The Old Testament Aeschylus – Tragedies Sophocles – Tragedies Herodotus – Histories Euripides – Tragedies Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War Hippocrates – Medical Writings Aristophanes – Comedies Plato – Dialogues Aristotle – Works Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus Euclid – Elements Archimedes – Works Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections Cicero – Works Lucretius – On the Nature of Things Virgil – Works Horace – Works Livy – History of Rome Ovid – Works Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola; Germania Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion Ptolemy – Almagest Lucian – Works Marcus Aurelius – Meditations Galen – On the Natural Faculties The New Testament Plotinus – The Enneads St. Augustine – "On the Teachers"; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine The Song of Roland The Nibelungenlied The Saga of Burnt Njál St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy; The New Life; On Monarchy Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Thomas More – Utopia Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion Michel de Montaigne – Essays William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy John Milton – Works Molière – Comedies Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Thoughts Concerning Education Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding; Monadology Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal William Congreve – The Way of the World George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary; Micromegas Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets David Hume – A Treatise of Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Jean-Jacques Rousseau – On the Origin of Inequality; On the Political Economy; Emile – or, On Education, The Social Contract Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason; The Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual Peace Edward Gibbon – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography James Boswell – Journal; Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D. Antoine de Lavoisier – Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (Elements of Chemistry) Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison – Federalist Papers Jeremy Bentham – An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Faust; Poetry and Truth Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier – Analytical Theory of Heat Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – Phenomenology of Spirit; Philosophy of Right; Lectures on the Philosophy of History William Wordsworth – Poems Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Poems; Biographia Literaria Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice; Emma Carl von Clausewitz – On War Stendhal – The Red and the Black; The Charterhouse of Parma; On Love Lord Byron – Don Juan (poem) Arthur Schopenhauer – Studies in Pessimism Michael Faraday – The Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity Charles Lyell – Principles of Geology Auguste Comte – The Positive Philosophy Honoré de Balzac – Père Goriot; Eugenie Grandet Ralph Waldo Emerson – Representative Men; Essays; Journal Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter Alexis de Tocqueville – Democracy in America John Stuart Mill – A System of Logic; On Liberty; Representative Government; Utilitarianism; The Subjection of Women; Autobiography Charles Darwin – The Origin of Species; The Descent of Man; Autobiography Charles Dickens – Pickwick Papers; David Copperfield; Hard Times Claude Bernard – Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine Henry David Thoreau – Civil Disobedience; Walden Karl Marx – Capital; Communist Manifesto George Eliot – Adam Bede; Middlemarch Herman Melville – Moby-Dick; Billy Budd Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary; Three Stories Henrik Ibsen – Plays Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace; Anna Karenina; What is Art?; Twenty-Three Tales Mark Twain – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Mysterious Stranger William James – The Principles of Psychology; The Varieties of Religious Experience; Pragmatism; Essays in Radical Empiricism Henry James – The American; The Ambassadors