The title here is pretty descriptive. This is a 350-page book on how to properly read a book. In short, reading well requires engagement and active reading - underlying, forcing yourself to summarize the book’s arguments, having a point of view on what it says (even if that point of view is, “I don’t find it persuasive.”)
How does one actually read a book?
The authors distinguish the 4 levels of reading:
Elementary: Basic comprehension of the words and sentences.
Inspectional: Quick overview to determine the book's main ideas. You might quickly scan the books’ table of contents, introduction, index, and conclusion.
Analytical: Deep understanding of the author's arguments and their significance. This is where you start extensively engaging with the text and reading actively, and what most of the book focuses on
Syntoptic: Comparing multiple books on a topic to form a comprehensive view. I’ve done a version on this on a few topics:
Nutrition and exercise (The Secret Life of Groceries, How the Other Half Eats, Burn, The Hungry Brain)
Happiness (The Myths of Happiness, Happiness is a Choice You Make, The How of Happiness)
What I learned from the book
Why are you doing this?
There are lots of different reasons to read a book.
To be entertained. To impress others. To learn facts. To challenge our assumptions and grow. Sometimes, even just to finish it once we’ve started.
Are you just scanning the words or actually trying to fully understand the authors’ argument?
There isn’t a “best” type of reading, but it is helpful to understand why you’re doing the thing. This is also relevant for work - are you reading a report to understand it or just say that you read it?
Checking the box v. mastery
Relatedly, you can read a book just to read it (“checking the box”) or read it to fully understand what it says and grapple with it (“mastery”). In life, there are “checking the box” activities and “mastery” activities:
Checking the box: Just doing it and “showing up” is what matters or will get you 99% of the benefits.
Mastery: You can check the box, but there are high returns or benefits to going deep and mastering the skills. Said otherwise, the outcome is highly variable.
If you try to master “checking the box” activities, you can waste a lot of time. Lots of chores, for example, just need to get done.
And if you try to check the box on mastery activities, you can leave a lot on the table or shortchange yourself. If you lift weights with terrible form, you are unlikely to get much stronger.
Importantly, reading isn’t always a mastery activity. The authors make the point that not all books are created equal and should not demand the same amount of your time.
It’s supposed to be hard; reading as Type 2 fun
Most “great books” are “out our of our league” and hard to understand.
We shouldn’t expect to fully understand a book after reading it once. We pull ourselves up to their level, the same way we work our way to the top of a mountain on a strenuous hike.
It reminded me of the “fun scale:”
Type 1 fun is “enjoyable while it’s happening.” Watching TV, drinking margaritas, doing some easy skiing.
Type 2 fun is “miserable while it’s happening, but fun in retrospect.” A difficult workout or running an ultramarathon.
Type 3 fun is miserable and “not fun at all.” Waiting in line at the DMV for hours.
I’ve generally thought about reading as Type 1 fun: something to do to relax before bed or a form of entertain more “useful” and healthy than watching TV or being on my phone. Maybe reading Paradise Lost isn’t miserable, but it’s probably not something you find super fun in the moment.
I was inspired by the book and went to order an English translation of The Odyssey from Amazon…where I saw that I had ordered and promptly returned the same book 4 years ago. I sheepishly then ordered another “great book,” which I’ve been reading (and even enjoying), but it’s not the easy “Type 1” fun of reading a book written in 2024.
What makes a book “Great”?
According to the authors, one you can come back to again and again and continue to get more from it. At the risk of being cliched, it made me think of the show The Sopranos. I’ve watched the show multiple times - as a teenager, recent college grad, and father of multiple children - and each time it has another layer of meaning (e.g., one level it’s a violent drama, but one can also see it as a commentary on being a father or running a business).
My reactions and thoughts
What makes a book great for me?
As someone who reads primarily nonfiction, I’m not sure their litmus test applies to me. My test for a great book is simple: Does this book stay with me after I’m done? This can take multiple forms:
Providing a new framework or way for me to view the world. An Immense World, for example, pushed me to appreciate evolution and natural selection’s role in our physical world.
Causing me to think about an issue, turn it over in my head, and possibly do even more reading. After reading Nuclear War: A Scenario, I spent a lot of time thinking about nuclear war. I just finished Random Family and have similarly found it hard to not think about.
Even a simple image or turn of phrase can stick. There’s a passage from In the Heart of the Sea about a teenager who has signed up to work on a whaling boat. As the journey starts and the shore recedes, he realizes that his innocence and childhood is over. For whatever reason, the paragraph has stuck with me
Now that the island had slipped over the horizon, Nickerson began to understand, as only an adolescent on the verge of adulthood can understand, that the carefree days of childhood were gone forever: “Then it was that I, for the first time, realized that I was alone upon a wide and an unfeeling world . . . without one relative or friend to bestow one kind word upon me.” Not till then did Nickerson begin to appreciate “the full sacrifice that I had made.”
Another test is, “do I want to tell people about it?”
A non-great or forgettable nonfiction book, in my opinion, simply presents facts. As the authors put it:
Reading for information does not stretch your mind any more than reading for amusement. It may seem as though it does, but that is merely because your mind is fuller of facts than it was before you read the book. However, your mind is essentially in the same condition that it was before. There has been a quantitative change, but not improvement in your skill
The tension between quality and quantity - and between what’s internally meaningful and externally impressive
Reading a lot of books can seen impressive. If you tell people you read 50-100 books in a year, they will be impressed. It’s an easy thing to quantify and understand. It makes for a good LinkedIn or Twitter post.
If you read 5 classics in a year - or re-read one classic over and over, it might be a less impressive soundbite or tweet, but might be more meaningful to you.