How to read a book

How to read a book by Mortimer Adler argues that we as a society don't learn to truly read and don't develop any critical reading skills after the sixth grade. It's a book regarding how to read if one is to truly understand rather that just read for entertainment or information. The author goes through four distinct levels of reading in Elementary Reading, Inspectional Reading, Analytical reading and Synoptical reading and shows approaches in which one can be a more demanding reader. Since many of us as lifelong learners are not in school we must know how to read to make books teach us well and educational opportunity in todays society is limited only by individual desire we must be more than a group of functional literates, we must be a group of competent readers.

We think that being well read means that we have read lots in quantity, read passively and glutted ourselves with toxic overdoses of unassimilated information.

Hobbes said: "If I read as many books as most men I should be as dull-witted as they" and Bacon distinguished between "books to be tasted, others to be swalled, and some few to be digested".

We must try and read for true understanding rather than for information or entertainment. The author of the book has also listed a reading list of some very great texts that can only nurture curiosity and a love of learning. A link to the book is as follows www.goodreads.com/book/show/567610.How_to_Read_a_Book and the reading list thinkingasleverage.wordpress.com/book-lists/mortimer-adlers-reading-list/