📚 How to Read a Book, Speedreading 101, and more.

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👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• A few helpful short reading tips.

• People who read for 30 minutes every day had a 20% lower chance of dying.

• A newspaper used AI to write a list of book recommendations and HALF were fake (I’m happy to share that my book summaries are written by a human).

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📚 Book Summary:

This week’s book is “How To Read A Book” by Mortimer Adler.

This is the classic book about books.

In it, the authors explain the four levels of reading, how to quickly skim a book to get an idea of whether it’s a match for you, their thoughts on speed reading, and much more.

Here are three key lessons from this book:

📖

1) How to Speedread (& When To Do It)

Mortimer Adler argues that the problem with most speed-reading books is that they teach people to have one goal: to read as fast as possible.

However, the true goal should be to teach people how to read at different speeds and to know when to change speeds.

It’s a waste of time to read a book slowly that only deserves to be skimmed, but it’s equally wasteful to read a book quickly that deserves to be read slowly.

Adler urges readers to remember this mantra:

“Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.”

And you don’t need to read a dozen books about speed reading or take multiple courses. Every book and course teaches the same fundamental strategy:

Slide your finger under the text as you read at a faster pace than you’re normally comfortable with.

Your eyes are attracted to motion, so the faster you move your finger, the faster you will be able to read.

Also, as long as you keep moving your finger forward, you’ll avoid regression (rereading what you already read) and subvocalization (sounding out the words in your head as you read).

However, Adler warns readers to be skeptical of all of the claims about speed reading and to understand that there is a tradeoff to reading faster:

The faster you read, the less satisfaction and comprehension you’ll get from your books.

So if you need to read an article or textbook for class to complete a homework assignment, by all means, speedread it.

But if you’re trying to enjoy and absorb a classic piece of literature for your own pleasure, trying to speedread it would be a massive blunder.

📖

2) How to Skim A Book (& Decide If It’s For You)

Have you ever walked into a bookstore and found yourself overwhelmed with the number of books to choose from?

Here’s Adler’s 5-step framework on how to properly skim a book to decide whether or not it’s a good fit for you:

1. Look at the front cover: The title, and particularly the subtitle of the book, should give you a rough idea of what the book is about.

2. Next study the table of contents: This will give you a general sense of the book’s structure. Think of it as a road map before taking a trip.

3. Then skim the index: The index will tell you which topics will be covered and which are most crucial to the book.

4. Read the publisher’s blurb: This is found on the book’s dust jacket on hardcover books or the back cover on paperback books. The blurb is written by the publisher’s marketing department to convice you to read the book. If the blurb doesn’t speak to you, it’s unlikely that the book will.

5. Pick a key chapter and read the last few pages: Pick a chapter that looks interesting and jump to the end of it. Authors tend to end their chapters with a summary, so you’ll be able to get a quick overview of the main takeaways and get a feel for the quality of the book.

By using this framework, you’ll be able to separate the books filled with fluff from the ones that are truly worth reading within minutes.

📖

3) The 1 Thing To Remember About Reading

One of my favorite lessons from this book is Adler's advice when it comes to reading practical books:

“The most important thing to remember about any practical book is that it can never solve the practical problems with which it is concerned…Nothing short of the doing solves the problem.”

Adler goes on to say that it is helpful to read books because you often need to learn new information to help you solve your problem, but it’s important to remember that just reading the book won’t do much for you.

“This book cannot solve the problem for you…action solves practical problems, and action occurs only in the world, not in books,” writes Adler.

So if you find yourself reading a lot of nonfiction books, but your life hasn’t changed, shift your goal from reading more to applying more.

Set a goal to apply at least 1 lesson from every book you finish before you allow yourself to start a new one.

Action will change your life much more than reading ever will.

✅ Actionable Advice

1) Speedreading isn’t the secret hack everyone thinks it is. The faster you read, the lower your comprehension and satisfaction will be.

2) If you aren’t sure if a book is for you, follow Adler’s framework for skimming a book:

• Read the title and subtitle.

• Read the table of contents.

• Skim the index.

• Read the publisher’s blurb.

• Read the last few pages of a key chapter.

3) Reading books can feel productive, but it’s only when you apply what you’ve learned that your life will actually change.

• Set a goal to apply at least 1 lesson from a book before you start a new one. 

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Your opinion matters!

Thank you for reading!

-Alex W.