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It’s not worth summarizing every book. I took a course at UChicago on how to read a book based on Mortimer Adler’s book of the same name, and the takeaway is t
by wenc 3y ago
It’s not worth summarizing every book.
I took a course at UChicago on how to read a book based on Mortimer Adler’s book of the same name, and the takeaway is that the first reading of a book should be a quick one (table of contents, skimming, dipping into pages). Only after a book is shown to have promise are we then to engage in deep reading which not only involves summarizing but also syntopical reading, which is to read other books around the same topic.
One thing that has really helped me is to scribble notes in the margins and to write a précis after every chapter, then a précis on the inside cover of the book to summarize all my chapter précis.
Finally all good books should be read twice or more. Good reading is rereading. This is a hard rule to follow because nobody has time to read the same book twice but the truth is you can’t understand a book deeply on first reading because you don’t have the lay of the land and the benefit of retrospection. A rereading helps you focus on details missed the first time around. To be honest though, very few books meet my bar of my willing to reread them.
- travisporter 3y agoThis may be cultural but I just cannot bring myself write in a book even in pencil. post-its notes for me this is a great idea if I have the discipline
- wenc 3y agoI had the same problem but my instructor told me: a book devoid of scribbles is a book that hasn’t been engaged with deeply. If you have to, buy two copies of a book — one for display and another to scribble in, knowing that you’ll truly own the scribbled copy because you won’t be able to sell it. Post-its work. For me I use a mechanical pencil.
- njarboe 3y agoScholars from the middle ages wrote on the edges of their scrolls and codexes. Some of these notes are very interesting and useful to scholars. In elementary and primary school most are taught not to write in books because they have to be used for decades, but there is a long tradition of taking notes in books. They are very inexpensive now compared to the past and when you write in the you leave a little extra something for posterity.
- Taywee 3y agoThe era is not the same. Our scribing in the margins is significantly less valuable than that of medieval scholars, because our mediums for recording, storing, archiving, and sharing information are significantly less restricted. The levels of waste produced in the modern era are unimaginably higher than then, as well, so our responsibilities are completely different.
- TheFreim 3y agoIt may help to look at it this way: A book you won't write in is a book that owns you, rather than you owning the book. A book is designed to convey information on the page, writing in your book only adds to and fulfills it's purpose.
- bigtunacan 3y agoOr it is owned by the library
- TheFreim 3y agoGood point, though I will say that I've checked out a lot of library books that have had useful markings people have put in them, though I wouldn't personally mark something that isn't my own property that way.
- einpoklum 3y agoYour insistence on this kind of 'consumptive' and 'territory-marking' ownership of books is kind of silly IMHO. I mean, suppose you have a 100 books. You're not reading more than 2 or 3 of them at once, if that; and it's not like you're doing anything with the rest other than keeping them on a shelf. Now, Once you either have a family, or have friends with similar interests, or with kinds of similar interests etc - those 98 (or 100) books become something you lend, or even give away. And when you get older, you will pass on your entire library, at some point, or sell it off, or bequeath it etc. At any of these points, you want the book to be free of your personal jots and notes, and as close to pristine condition as possible, for the other readers. Write your notes in a notebook, or on your PC or laptop (or whatever). They'll also be searchable and easily editable.
- kashunstva 3y ago> And when you get older, you will pass on your entire library, at some point, or sell it off, or bequeath it etc. At any of these points, you want the book to be free of your personal jots and notes While I generally have a communitarian orientation, I predict that as I approach this point, other end-of-life matters will occupy my headspace to a greater degree than any psychic rumblings about the odd marginalia in my dusty collection. As an aside (because for the mere mortals among us it doesn’t apply) occasionally some historical inferences are made based on the reader’s margin notations.
- martinflack 3y agoI prefer to write on ruled paper and tuck it into the front cover for the following reasons: - ruled paper is easier to write on - you won't run out of space (just add sheets) - you can rewrite summaries as you revisit books decades later and retuck the new summary - you can quickly scan the papers to archive a digital copy - you can remove your notes to lend the book (or not) - you can transfer your notes to a new edition trivially - you can be more candid in what you write, knowing it's trivially discarded without giving up the book - all the notes are in one place and you don't have to thumb through the book looking for where you wrote an idea that you half-remember - you have space to draw diagrams if appropriate - you can find something on the internet that importantly relates, print off a page or two, and adjunct your notes - you can do extensive internet research and build a whole matching folder of contents on your laptop, but you can print a page of Title/URL's to adjunct your notes as a backup (and for anyone who borrows the book+notes) (edit: formatting)
- bikenaga 3y agoI was using Post-Its to mark pages and add comments, but I stopped after reading some warnings about the glue damaging pages: https://siarchives.si.edu/blog/post-it-or-not-post-it https://siarchives.si.edu/blog/post-it-or-not-post-it http://libraries.ucsd.edu/preservation/postits.html http://libraries.ucsd.edu/preservation/postits.html It's not clear from these articles how soon damage becomes apparent; I haven't noticed any yet in books which had Post-Its. It may not matter if you don't intend your books to have archival value. I've tried Book Darts for marking pages, and they can also be used like paper clips to hold notes. I write short notes in pencil, but try to avoid dark leads which make marks hard to erase.
- jonsen 3y agoSecond link of yours doesn't work for me. I have at least a few Post-it notes in every book. Some sitting there for thirty years or more. Never experienced any problem. Always used the real Post-it from 3M.
- bikenaga 3y agoHere's a working second link: https://web.archive.org/web/20110128174227/http://libraries.ucsd.edu/preservation/postits.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110128174227/http://libraries....
- coffeefirst 3y agoSame. I once had a professor who heard that and said “of course, you treat books like they’re sacred objects.” I do keep a notebook where I write about random stuff and a lot of thinking about what I’m reading goes in there.
- ted_bunny 3y agoUsed to feel the same way. But I've developed an appreciation for secondhand marked books, thinking about who was the previous reader. It kind of destigmatized it for me.
- konto 3y agoCan you share some books you reread?
- samanator 3y ago> I took a course at UChicago on how to read a book based on Mortimer Adler’s book of the same name That's the same book mentioned in the footnotes of the article. "How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading Mortimer J. Adler, Charles van Doren" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/567610.How_to_Read_a_Book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/567610.How_to_Read_a_Boo...
- the_af 3y ago> Finally all good books should be read twice or more. Good reading is rereading. Fully agreed! > This is a hard rule to follow because nobody has time to read the same book twice Disagreed. I read fiction and I tend to re-read a lot, sometimes three or four times. I read for pleasure, so I have the time. Reading is "me" time, and I spend it however I want. It's only hard to re-read if you have some silly goal like "I must read N books this month". I find such goals worthless.
- namaria 3y ago>It's only hard to re-read if you have some silly goal like "I must read N books this month". I find such goals worthless. I'm on board. I have a great deal of fun hunting books and sitting down with the good ones I find. I don't care how many I go through or how many pages. Reading good stuff is a matter of quality of life for me. "A life without books is unlivable" Erasmus
- ohmahjong 3y agoSome books are especially suited for multiple passes. Every time I reread a Discworld novel, I find new jokes or references that I had missed earlier.
- axpy906 3y agoThank for this comment; it’s gold.
- divan 3y agoWhy stop at two? Susan Rigetti suggests four times! [1] I've never tried that but I fully agree with her :) and just quietly dream about regaining my focus for reading so I could reread books 4 times. Quote to save people from falling into the rabbit hole of her blog: > Over the years and after much formal and informal study, I’ve learned a pretty foolproof method for studying philosophy: read everything four times. Here’s how it works: > - First read: Read casually, as if you’re reading a novel or a newspaper or magazine article. Your goal here is simply to observe, not to engage (yet). > - Second read: This time, read to understand. Take notes. Ask yourself, “what does the author really mean here?” Summarize things in your own words. Try to break down the arguments being presented into bullet points, identifying the premises and the conclusions. When you read a term you are unfamiliar with or want to understand better, google it or look it up in the SEP. > - Third read: Read again, and this time engage with the text. Go back to your notes, where you identified the arguments being presented. Think of arguments in favor of what the author is saying and arguments against. Think of counterexamples. > - Fourth read: Now read for one last time. Read casually, the way you did in the first read. Notice how your understanding of the text is now so much richer and deeper than it was on the first read. > If you study this way, you’ll walk away with an incredibly solid understanding of philosophy and an intellectual foundation that will serve you well for the rest of your life. [1] https://www.susanrigetti.com/philosophy https://www.susanrigetti.com/philosophy