On a related note, I took an online course at the UChicago Graham School a couple of years ago on How To Read Classic Texts. [1] We used Mortimer Adler's "How

On a related note, I took an online course at the UChicago Graham School a couple of years ago on How To Read Classic Texts. [1] We used Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book" as our guide. It was only a 3-4 week class ($275, so not cheap), but it was one of the most useful classes I'd ever taken. I'd always known about Adler's book and had attempted to apply the principles on my own, but having an instructor drill it into me week after week was what I needed to make the principles stick. Turns out that executing the really basic principles, like paying attention to the Table of Contents, or reading the Introduction/Foreward, were really hard to do. It's not because they're actually difficult per se, but most of us have a mental resistance to doing these things because they seem trivial and low payoff. But the instructor kept insisting and over time, convinced me on why seemingly trivial things like that were important. I was also debating with the books too early. A basic principle -- that most people don't like -- is to withhold judgment on first reading, and to interpret based on the author's intention. After you've done that, then you can debate. This of course requires re-reading the book (who has time for that!) but good reading is re-reading. Reading well is actually really simple but really difficult at the same time because we have so many mental barriers that prevent us from doing the basic things well. [1] https://grahamcourses.uchicago.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=2198607 https://grahamcourses.uchicago.edu/search/publicCourseSearch...