How to Read a Book

This board is turning into /b/ on books.

First people should go read "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren(1972 revised.

Remember:

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

--Frances Bacon

Read on and learn people!!

I pretend to read for the culture.

This book made me scared of reading wrong.

Too many people read now so they can impress their friends or peers and gain no knowledge from it. Best case scenario, they might gain information they can parrot but don't understand.

I've long since given up on attempting to improve myself.

Within this awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries:
Happiest they of human race,
To whom their God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, to force the way;
But better had they ne’er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.

--Sir Walter Scott

I read that book and it's fucking awful. I tried following its advice, but I would never use its methods again.

>Anglos need a guide on how to read
Why are all of your kin imbeciles?

have you actually read it? if you did, you read it wrong

>charles van doren
kek

I cant imagine meeting the faggot who would make a post like this

This book is pretty good too senpai

I think this about 90% of the posts I see these days

this. at best its methods are only good for academic books.

tl;dr don't read it if your only interest is literature, read abc of literature by pound instead

New York Times best seller guarantees it sucks or at best is mediocre.

this book is not good for most shit tbqhfam. read some harold bloom

It's the Americans. Always the Americans.

Spoken like someone who is incapable of independent critical thought. You read books on an elementary level and then parrot everything your teachers and friends say/think.

>Spoken like someone who is incapable of independent critical thought
huh? I read the book, made an opinion of it, gave it an honest try anyway, still didn't like it. How is that being incapable of independent critical thought?

If that's how you judge a book you're gonna miss out desu

The reading list at the back is great too

The democrats and liberals have gutted the American education system. George W. Bush started it with the no child left behind garbage and then the dems/liberals really ran with it from there with common core and other garbage. Americans under 35 are seriously mentally retarded., ignorant or just flat out stupid.

This is a sign that you don't read well. The authors clearly say that their main concern is with Non-Fiction.

I found their system works well for everything in the early stages of studying any book but later you need to rely on other tools. They even say early on that the type of reading they are discussing isn't for entertainment reading, IIRC. Its a solid book on reading better....not the end all be all for every situation but a solid foundation to build from in my opinion.

Excellent book OP. It's not great for poetry or books that require artistic interpretation. Its a good jumping off point though for studying texts or even early/cursory examination of novels.