How to Read a A Book—Book Review, Summary and Notes

How Strongly I Recommend It: 10/10

How Likely I Will Gift It: 5/10

The Review

This is one of the most fundamental books, not to learn how to read but to increase the information you can extract from any book. The methods, ideas, and thoughts are profound and well-established. After reading the book two times, taking notes, and applying my learnings, the book changed how I approach books.

I always felt bad when I half-read any book before reading this one. However, I learned that I can read a book much more quickly without reading every sentence in it. It’s a matter of disciplined method combined with active reading.

I admit that I don’t follow everything in the book to the word. That’s okay. I sometimes do syntopical reading from the books I’ve read before in combination with the book I’m reading for the first time. Yet, I feel much more wealthy with the tools I have in my reading. It’s a matter of using the tool at the right time for the right thing.

I recommend this book to everyone.

However, I am not sure if I will gift this book to many people. You have to arrive at this book by yourself because if someone gifts you, you will likely not read it. The craving must come out from within, not nudged from outside.

Who Should Read It?

Anyone who has never thought about how to read books in a better way. I think the majority of the population doesn’t have the tools mentioned in this book. Hence, everyone should read it.

Why should you read it?

The book is more about getting the most out of any book in the shortest amount of time than reading a book. If you struggle to stick to a book or buy so many books but your reading speed falls behind, or you have difficulties reading non-fiction, you should read this to extend your reading toolkit.

Reading is rarely reading word by word, unlike what’s been taught at school. It’s a dynamic activity in which you have to change your reading style, speed, and mindset depending on the book and your knowledge about the topic. If you don’t know how to do these, you should read this book.

The Activity and Art of Reading

“…knowledge is not much a prerequisite to understanding as is commonly supposed. We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.”

Reading for information vs. reading for understanding

Reading for understanding is more active reading that changes the knowledge level of a reader from less to more. It funda­mentally challenges, not just gives information. Reading for un­derstanding requires being ignorant or having a little bit of in­formation about a topic. Reading for information is about reading newspapers, magazines or others that are intelligently through to us. These things may increase our information level but don’t change our under­standing of anything.

Writer vs. Reader

The writer must be superior to the reader, and that superiority should create an inconsistency. For a reader to understand while reading, this instability should be partially or fully resolved, and the reader should become superior in the end.

Reading as Learning

To be informed is to learn as much understanding as what you didn’t understand before. We can learn the existence of information by reading it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we understand what it says and learn it. We just learn the information. We’re informed, not enlightened. To be enlightened, we have to be informed first. But if we stop there, we’ll never truly understand what we read. To understand, we may think about the information or ask questions. But both will demand us we answer those questions. If we have a teacher who answers these questions, it doesn’t show that we have learned. Also, when reading books, we don’t have a present teacher; we have to answer these questions by ourselves. That’s what Mortimer calls learning by discovery. If we learn by instruction, we’re only informed. We need to seek the next step and discover to learn. I also think that’s the beauty of Feynman’s technique: explain what you’ve learned to a kid.

Four Levels of Reading

1. Elementary
2. Inspectional
3. Analytical
4. Syntopical

Elementary reading is what’s taught us in elementary school.; it’s the simplest form of reading. Our goal is to understand what a sentence says.

In inspectional reading, we ask, “What is the book about?” Our goal is to understand the book in a limited time, be it 15 mins or 30 minutes. We have to learn as much as we can from the book in this limited time. Therefore, only skimming is not enough.

In analytical reading, we have unlimited time. It’s the level we understand the book. We ask questions, converse with the author, extract its arguments, and learn; then, it’s an insanely active level of reading that results in the book becoming a part of a reader.

The last level of reading is syntopical reading. The reader indeed reads many books together to understand a subject, not just one book. And the reader may create their own perspective that’s not in any of these books. It’s the most complex and rewarding part of reading.

Inspectional Reading

It’s the reading we do to understand what the author says, its message and pivotal arguments, and whether it is worth our time or not. Inspectional reading consists of two parts. Beginner readers can do these parts fully detached from each other, but experienced readers can do it together. In the first part of inspectional reading, we call systematic skimming, and the second part is superficial reading.

You need to be able to answer the following questions after the inspectional reading:

1. What kind of book is it?
2. What is it about as a whole?
3. What is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops their conception or understanding of that general subject matter?

Inspectional reading is the reading we do before giving the book a full read. Our goal is to understand what the book is about, what’s its argument and does it worth reading or not. Inspectional reading consists of two parts.

1. Systematic Skimming
2. Superficial Reading

Systematic Skimming

Systematic skimming is the part where we look closer at the book. The goal is to understand the theme of the book, whether it matters to you or not, if it requires more time to read, its pivotal arguments, etc. (for me: it’s the decision point for buying the book).

It consists of multiple steps. Many people skip this and dive into the book that they regret quickly and, as a result, waste a lot of time.

1. Read the title page, preface, and foreword.
2. Study the table of contents.
3. Check the index. (and some passages that are cited—most crucial ones in the index)
4. Read the publisher’s blurb.
5. Look at the chapters that seem pivotal to its argument.
6. Turn the pages and read here and there, a paragraph or two, a page or two, not more than that. Look for signs of the main contention.
7. Read the last 2-3 pages. Authors usually cannot resist not summarizing the book. That’s the conclusion.

After completing these seven steps, you should have a broad understanding of the book and can decide if you want to read the book. Many books won’t pass this stage, and that’s okay. There are millions of books, and we cannot read them all. We have to choose what we read carefully.

Superficial Reading

In inspectional reading, the second step is superficial reading, which is reading a book without stopping and pondering its arguments. It’s okay not to understand everything the book says. It’s important to keep going, understand as much as possible, and be fine with what you can grasp. When reading a difficult book, you’ll come back to it later. You’ll try to understand all arguments in the second reading, and that reading requires you to read the book once.

While reading for the first time, it’s crucial to read at different speeds. You need to be able to speed up and down. Many people read with sub-voice, and it slows them down and causes them to spend unnecessary time on parts that are not that valuable. Many books are worth not even skimming. That’s why practice and learn how to read at different speed levels. In inspectional reading, you both read faster. Not only do you speed read, but you also read less of the book because you read with a different mind: understand the book holistically.

To speed up your reading, put your finger on the line and move it at a speed a little faster than your eyes can follow. That will help speed up because your eyes will have fewer chances to fixate themselves and only pause once or twice in a line while grasping multiple words at once. This method will also increase your concentration. But contrary to what speed reading courses claim, it doesn’t improve your comprehension. Comprehension will come when we read analytically. It’s not the purpose here.

The Essence of Active Reading

The active and demanding reader asks questions, takes notes, makes the book their own, and becomes better when they keep reading consistently.

An active reader asks four questions and writes down answers:

• What is the book about as a whole? (What’s the theme?)
• What is being said in detail, and how? (main ideas, assertions, arguments)
• Is the book true, in whole or part? (make up your own mind)
• What of it? (why does the author think knowing these things is important? Is it necessary for you to know them?)

Analytical Reading

Rarely does any book need to be read analytically, and 99% of the books don’t need this kind of reading. Only great books need to be read analytically, and these books are rare.

Analytically reading a book requires the previous steps that are described in the elementary and inspectional reading.

In analytical reading, we start with finding what a book is about and learning what a book says. Only after we can say that we understand can we criticize a book as a communication of knowledge. First, we need to read and understand without prejudice or holding any judgment. Only then can we criticize.

First Stage: Finding What A Book is About

Pigeonholing a book

Before reading the whole book, you must know what kind of book you’re reading. Is it a scientific, historical, or philosophical book? Is it theoretical or practical if it’s a scientific book? Identifying the book is crucial to approaching how to read it. You can learn this by looking into its title and front matter, but it’s not always enough. You have to examine the table of contents (if it has one) and index it, and read a few pages, the intro, and the summary. Once you understand if it’s theoretical or practical, you’re already better. But how? I mean, what defines theoretical as theoretical or practical as practical? In short, practical books often talk with “you should do this” or use words such as “should” and “ought,” “good” and “bad,” “ends,” and “means.” In contrast, theoretical books keep saying “is,” not “should.” They try to show what it is instead of how to make something better or ways to change things.

Also, understanding what kind of theoretical book is not always easy. Some books say they talk about physics but are more philosophical, and vice versa.

Understanding historical books is easy, but separating them from novels is not, as history has to include good storytelling.

Scientific books talk about anything that can happen at any time and often outside of the daily routine life of ordinary humans. In contrast, philosophical books often talk about things that happen in ordinary human life that don’t require extra knowledge than just an armchair to sit and think.

X-Raying A Book

State the unity of the book in a sentence; if not possible, in a few sentences, a paragraph. Unity is the theme or main point of a book. It’s not what kind of book it is but what the book is about as a whole. To do that, you must understand the skeleton of the book, see beyond its clothes and flesh, and X-ray the book. And write that down. Just thinking about it doesn’t suffice. If you can’t express it, you’re just fooling yourself.

As much as we need to state the book’s unity (what it is about as a whole), we also must identify its sections and how the author identified what they wanted to say in each section. These sections don’t need to be defined by the author. It’s how the reader sees them. These sections would be identical if the author and the reader did their jobs well. Also, the reader should outline each section separately and each part of the section. This outlining goes on and on, but this doesn’t have to be done for every book; the reader also should do it together with identifying the whole. The crucial part is knowing the structure of the book’s sections, their relations, and their connections to each other. The reader can outline everything in detail and how everything ties together, but this should be limited to the book, not outline the subject matter the book is about. When getting into the subject matter, the outline will be unlimited.

Lastly, the reader must look at the author’s intentions. What problem did the author try to solve? To see the book’s unity, the reader must ask questions to learn what the book serves. Authors often don’t make it explicit enough; the reader should ask questions to figure out the author’s intention and the reason for the existence of the book.

Second Stage: Finding What A Book Says

Coming to terms with the author

The author uses words and phrases, sometimes interchangeable meanings. They use the same words for different purposes or different words for the same meaning. As a reader, our responsibility is to understand which words say what and what the author intended to use with what words. That means coming to terms with the author. We don’t need to do this for every word consciously, but we can find the essential words and phrases the author used and come to terms with these. These will help readers to understand the arguments and the author’s mind better. It will help us to understand the book better.

Determining the message of the author

The author’s message can be embedded into words, sentences, and paragraphs. It’s usually not hidden in fiction books but also can be unobvious; the author might reveal it as a whole. To understand a book as a whole, we, readers, must look for arguments in words, sentences, paragraphs, propositions, and problems the author solved. Our goal is to answer, “What is being said in detail, and how?” Here, we interpret the content. We must find the most important sentences that lead to the author’s propositions. With these important sentences, we may clearly build the author’s arguments. But sometimes, we need to construct arguments on our own as the authors might fail to reveal them or expect us to find them. The author’s arguments and solutions they give (or failing to give a solution) should be out of the book in the end, so we can say we understand the book. Merely thinking about them is not enough. We have to ask questions, put effort into finding answers to what the author says, and form these propositions, arguments, problems, and if the author succeeded or failed to solve these problems. All that requires an active reader who adjusts reading speed and marks words, sentences, arguments, and propositions to extract them from the book.

Third Stage: Criticizing A Book as a Communication of Knowledge

Criticizing A Book Fairly

The next step after understanding the author’s arguments, dissecting their propositions, and building up how they approach problems and solutions, we can judge and criticize what they are saying. However, to criticize, we must understand first; we must listen to their arguments as a whole, do our part of the work, and not cut their words before they finish. To be able to say, “I understand,” we must be active and work through the book without judgment. Once we understand, we can judge, and it’s our duty, as a reader, to judge and criticize (agree, disagree, or suspend judgment) the book. We must take a position, and while doing so, we should avoid contentious and disputatious behavior. We should be open to agreeing as much as disagreeing. To stress again, we must suspend judgment until we are considerably sure that we understand the author’s points, and then, only then, we must criticize the book to learn, to agree, to disagree, or to judge what they are saying.

When we disagree with each other, we often don’t understand the difference between personal opinion and knowledge. The same applies to books we read. We have to separate personal opinions and judge the authors’ arguments by thinking about our missing knowledge or the authors’ missing knowledge. When disagreeing, the ground should be open to learning. As we can also (hypothetically) teach the author, it’s crucial to think of our arguments as either personal opinions or knowledge based on facts or can be explained by concrete reasons, not just mere opinions or prejudices we have.

Agreeing or Disagreeing with An Author

To agree or disagree with an author, we must first say that we understand. Without understanding, we cannot express any judgment or even suspend judgment. And understanding doesn’t mean agreement with an author. Disagreement doesn’t mean misunderstanding or not caused by it. We can only disagree if we understand. To say that we disagree, we must first identify our emotions and feelings. Do we disagree because we don’t like the arguments? Second, if we disagree, we must explicitly state our own assumptions. Lastly, we must try taking the author’s point of view. Without sympathy, we cannot disagree; it would be incomplete if we approach with impartiality. As a result, we can only disagree by saying one of these:

1. The author is uninformed.
2. The author is misinformed.
3. The author is illogical.
4. The author’s analysis is incomplete.

Whole saying any of these, we, as readers, have to be precise and definite about why and where the author failed in information or logic.

When an author is uninformed, they lack sufficient knowledge about the problems they present or trying to solve. As a reader, we must show explicitly when an author is uninformed and present knowledge they lack that is relevant to the problem. When an author is misinformed, the real problem might be still missing knowledge, but here the author makes erroneous arguments by going beyond missing knowledge. The author presents as true or a fact that is contrary to a fact. The author claims the knowledge they don’t possess. When an author is illogical, they use wrong reasoning with the information they have. They committed a fallacy in reasoning. They conclude something which doesn’t follow the reasons they explained earlier. As a reader, if we fail to support any of these three, we must agree with the author; we don’t have a choice. We might not “like” the author’s arguments, but we have no free will to choose to disagree. The last point of disagreement we can make is about the author’s completeness. When an author’s book is incomplete, we can say that the author didn’t solve all the problems they presented, didn’t consider all ramifications or implications, or didn’t use the material they presented well. The last point is about the whole book, while the first three can be about certain parts of the book. When we make the last remark, we are also obligated to present the missing points.

Using Analytical Reading

The analytical reading has three stages. First, learn the book and find out what it is about. The second, interpret the book and its content. The last stage is criticizing the book.

We went through the details of each stage. They represent the ideal of analytical reading. The ideal means it’s something to aim for, but most people can’t, and books don’t need this. The goal is to approach the ideal as close as possible.

Keep in mind that if we do analytical reading, we can read a lot fewer books as it takes good effort and time. But only well-read books matter more, and not all books need to be read in this way. The majority of books only should be inspected. We should know (and learn) which style we want to use when reading.

Aids to Analytical Reading

So far, we talked about (and learned) reading a book alone, without going to other resources, singling it out, or intrinsically reading it without getting external help. That was intentional because without intrinsic reading, we cannot (and shouldn’t) look at supporting material, reference books, or commentaries because they can alter our judgment, opinion, and criticism of the book. Focusing on understanding the book alone is the first thing we need to do. Then, only then, we can look for external aids to understand better or criticize the book fairly.

The first external aid is relevant experience. We talked about them before in the book: common and special experiences. Common experience can be brought to the table when we’re reading a philosophical book. There is no laboratory needed, only a chair and time to think. The common daily experience can aid learning and understanding. In special experience, there is an additional great effort required. A historian might have spent years reading historical documents that not an ordinary person can access, or a scientist may work in labs and find results that an ordinary person cannot do. These special experiences can come into play when reading scientific books; as readers, we must follow (and be able to) the arguments and basis of what we’re reading. If we can’t, we need to go back to the basics and learn there to continue reading the book.

We can use other books as external aid (extrinsic) to our reading. Some books already require us to know earlier books as they base arguments on the previous work of others or the author’s previous books. These cases can only be covered (and the author’s point/arguments can only be learned) when we read these books in a certain order. We come across these cases more in history and philosophy than in science and fiction. Philosophers read each other’s works more than others and build arguments based on them.

There is another category to use as extrinsic help: commentaries and abstracts. It’s crucial to understand when and how these works should be used. Using commentary without reading a book and understanding by ourselves is dangerous. We are prone to errors in our judgment and limit ourselves to the point of commentators. If we use them to enhance our understanding and criticism, they are useful. Abstracts are also only useful when we use them to understand what the book is about when deciding to read it or not. They are unhelpful in reading and understanding the book as a whole. We have to form our judgments by reading the book ourselves, not by learning from others. Others (including the author’s abstract or introduction to the book in the first pages) can only explain from their perspective and leave out many details about the book.

As the last category of extrinsic reading aid, we can look at dictionaries and encyclopaedias (reference books). Before using any reference book, you must have four kinds of knowledge. 1) You must have some idea about what you want to know. You cannot wander around. Even if it’s vague, you must know what you’re searching for. 2) You must know where to find what you are looking for. 3) You must know how the knowledge is organized in the reference you’ll use. How the reference tried to arrange the information (alphabetical, chronological, subject-based, etc.). 4) The information you seek must be considered knowable by authors (You cannot find answers to “What do men live by?” as it cannot be stated as facts, but only unsupported opinions).

Dictionaries tell you more than you expect. You must learn abbreviations in dictionaries. They tell you the etymological and historical background of words and phrases. Every word represents a culture and historical knowledge. Understand them.

How to Read Practical Books

Reading practical books changes a few rules that we talked about before. Not just the rules but also how a reader approaches the reading. There are two kinds of practical books; one is like a guide (how to do a thing or a cookbook) that tells you how to do things to get a result. The other ones are concerned with the principles that generate rules that must be followed. Most books in politics and economics fall into this category. It talks about the theory of a practical thing, but we can say that it is practical.

There is a distinction in reading practical books. Whatever the book is about, the reader has to take action for the book to reach its purpose. If there is no action, the reader doesn’t accept the book’s methods or doesn’t understand the book. The author also tries to persuade the reader by adding narrative to the book, but, in the end, it’s on the reader to accept and act in the suggested way. If the book is about how to read a book, the reader will never learn if they never try the methods.

Agreeing with the author requires finding out what the author wants the reader to do and how the author wants the reader to do that thing, and the reader belongs to the audience the author intended to write for.

How to Read Imaginative Literature

Imaginative literature demands understanding behind its surface. If we ask someone why they liked a novel or what they liked in it, many become speechless. They know what they feel, but it’s much harder to describe it. When they can’t describe, they probably didn’t read the book to its fullest.

There are some “don’ts” when it comes to imaginative literature reading. Don’t resist the impact it has on you. Imaginative literature is about communicating experience, and their language is not as precise as the expository. The language often makes you feel something instead of removing ambiguity. The second “don’t” is that you don’t look for terms, propositions, and arguments. Imaginative literature teaches you only if you do your own thinking (learn from the story and experience), but you have to extract yourself, while expository literature demands that we must first try to understand the thinking the author had done.

The last “don’t” is don’t criticize the book for its truthiness, correctness, or consistency in communication. The author doesn’t try to give you the truth. Or what happens in real life. The story might not reflect even anyone in the real world even though all the places they talk about in the book are real.

General rules for reading imaginative literature:

1. Structural (understand the structure)
   1. classify the book in its category
   2. Grasp the unity of the whole book. You should be able to explain the book’s plot (even for poems) in one or two sentences.
   3. Discover how the whole is constructed by parts. Find the individuals, characterization, incident, etc.
2. Interpret the book
   1. Know characters, live through the events, and understand their episodes, incidents, thoughts, and speeches.
   2. Be part of the story, put yourself in, and understand how the background is connected to the story. Live in it, befriend characters, and understand the connections between characters, events, and the background they stay.
   3. Follow characters through their story and adventure. These rules help you understand the writer but don’t press too hard. Experience and enjoy the story. These rules help you figure out what you like in a story and why you like it.
3. Don’t criticize the book until you fully appreciate what the author has tried to make you experience. Don’t criticize the world the author created. Criticize what the author made with that world, what they make of it. We cannot agree or disagree with an imaginative author; we can only like it or not.

In summary, you make an honest appreciation of the book (live through the experience the author created), then you’re competent to judge (explain what you like/dislike and why).

Suggestions for Reading Stories, Plays, and Poems

Reading imaginative literature has its own rules, and here, the four questions also apply to stories, poems, epics, and plays that we must answer, albeit a bit differently.

1. What is the book about, as a whole?
2. What’s been said in detail, and how?
3. Is it true or false, in whole or part?

These three questions are straightforward to answer, or at least similar to other literature we talked about before. The 4th is “What of it?” is trickier and often doesn’t apply to poems and stories. There is no action to take (most of the time) after reading it. If any imaginative literature piece urges us or makes us react to a thing, we should do it with caution.

How to read stories: Read quickly with total immersion. Let the characters get into your mind and heart. Live with them, be part of their lives to understand them. Don’t judge them by their decisions until you’re sure that you lived with them. Don’t criticize a character until you’re sure why that character does a certain thing, and if then, stay unjudged as long as possible. Sometimes, you won’t get to know every character in a long novel, but it’s okay. Imagine you moved to a new town, and you’re learning things and the people around you. It’s the same. And if a book says something to your heart and you can’t put a name to why you liked the story, look for your deep feelings, like what satisfied you? Justice? Love? Sadism? Masochism?

Epics are the most honored but least-read literature because it’s very difficult for authors to end the story. Hence, it’s challenging for readers to read as well. However, they are as great as other fiction pieces and need to be read as the same, and gains will be much better, if not amazing.

Reading plays: Plays are a special kind. As most of the time, they don’t include how to direct it (lift it to the director). It’s up to the reader to direct the play. And have to. While reading, imagine you have a bunch of actors waiting for you, and you give them directions on how they should play. When possible, read out loud if the play is old (e.g., Shakespeare’s) so you understand better, even if the words are old.

Most plays are not worth reading. They are written for acting and should be acted. Especially tragedies (Greek tragedies) play a special role. As we know almost nothing about how Greeks directed the plays, we cannot fully judge. However, there are two things to keep in mind. 1) The time is limited in these tragedies, and it’s reflected in the characters’ decisions and how they approach the situations. If they had enough time, they could have decided better, etc. 2) Greek tragedy actors wore buskins and masks, while the chorus didn’t. Buskins elevated them and made them look like giants (elevating tragedy).

When reading poems, we think that we won’t understand them and that it’s difficult to understand. Therefore, we often don’t put effort into even finishing it. Most poetry doesn’t demand that much.

The first rule is, like in other fiction, to read it through without stopping, even if you don’t understand at all. Without seeing the whole, you cannot understand anything because a lyric poem is a whole, and parts alone don’t give the picture, although they help build the message.

The second step: read again but read out loud. Your ear catches the nuances and rhythm your mind cannot catch while reading silently. It helps you understand better.

In lyric poetry, you don’t come to terms with the author; you must discover keywords and question why those words came up.

Last, most lyrics are about conflicts. Conflicts with time or love, or both. Try finding and understanding that conflict. Sometimes, this conflict or that keyword won’t be mentioned in the poem at all, but it’s your job to discover that conflict.

The last tip is to read the poem again and again. It’s a lifetime of work, and in every read, you’ll discover new things you didn’t see before.

How to Read History

To understand history or read it well, we must first settle on the term history. There are two kinds of history. One is the facts that happened in the past, and the other that tells some story about the happened fact. History is stories around an event, a fact. It’s difficult to know the truth of what happened because the witnesses are dead, and we’re only left with narratives. That’s why historians leave no stone unturned before they make up their minds about an event. As we cannot do the same research, the first rule of reading history is to read more than one resource about an event or a period if we want to understand it. Also, history not only shows us what happened in the past, but it also shows what has happened up to now. An event that happened thousands of years ago still impacts today. That’s why the second rule is to read history to learn how an event changed the world in years and how it still impacts now.

The questions we ask in history books are the same as in any expository work. Yet, we need to change our expectations and approach them a little bit differently. We need to state what the book talks about and what not. We need to understand how the historian decided to tell the events and what’s the outline. Then we need to understand clearly what’s been said. Only then can we criticize. We can criticize the work’s facts only if we know if the historian is misinformed or uninformed. Otherwise, we can only criticize the storytelling. The last question, “What of it?” is the most applicable question. The answer lies in the practical and political actions we take.

How to Read A Biography

Biographies are stories of real persons. The definitive biography is a scholarly work about someone important. They can’t be about living people. Definitive biographies are not easy readings. There is also authorized biography. But it’s not unbiased; they are often commissioned by family and friends to show someone’s life. As it has this characteristic, we have to be careful when reading. They are usually biased. The last group is ordinary biographies; we expect the person to know their work and responsibilities to tell the facts and do their research like other historical books.

How to read an autobiography: Take autobiographies with a grain of salt. A person cannot write fully about themselves because they probably don’t fully know themselves. We might still learn about the person from their book and, how they wrote the book, how they approached writing events that happened in their lives.

If we want to learn about a person’s life, we should read as many biographies as possible, including an autobiography (if there is one).

We should still ask the questions we ask in any book and don’t criticize until we fully understand what it says.

How to Read About Current Events

We still need to ask the first four questions about the events we read. In addition, we need to know the author when reading about current events. We need to ask a series of questions to understand any author writing about current events:

1. What does the author want to prove?
2. Whom do they want to convince?
3. What special knowledge do they assume?
4. Do they really know what they are talking about?

The most important thing is: “Let the reader beware.” The author can have an interest in you understanding things in a certain way. Be aware of it.

How to Read Scientific Books

You don’t read classical mathematical or scientific books to become knowledgeable in the area; you read them to understand the problem author tried to solve. That’s why the same expository questions apply, although their answers might be more challenging. That’s why try to state the problem the author has tried to solve as clearly as possible.

You might face challenges when confronted with math in science books. But math is just another language that you can learn the basics to keep reading. It’s not something to be scared of. Often the math in popular science books or classical science books is not that challenging. Again, don’t try to be competent in the subject matter; your goal is to understand the problem.

Read actively (read math in elementary reading), try to understand the problem, and ask the same questions as for other expository work.

How to Read Philosophical Books

Children ask great questions, such as “Why are people?” Their questions are mostly related to understanding why, and it’s remarkable. We mostly have no answers to those questions and somehow either dismiss them or do not even try to answer. Along the way to adulthood, we evolve this curiosity to a more practical side: how. We shape our minds with education (school and parental) and ask questions that are useful in everyday life. Philosophers are exactly asking the same questions as children do but trying to answer as wise adults.

Philosophers ask about being and existence, change or becoming (why things change, or what is change), and good and evil (and how they are separate from right and wrong). Philosophers ask these foundational questions in even more topics, such as knowledge, etc.

We can group these into two:

1. Questions about what is or happens in the world fall into theoretical philosophy.
2. Questions about good and evil, right and wrong, and what ought to be done or sought fall into practical or normative philosophy.

Of course, there are many sub-branches in these two divisions. What is right/wrong, good and evil, in the individual belongs to ethics. The same but for society and its relation to the individual belongs to politics or political philosophy. The knowledge questions (what’s involved in our knowing anything, limits of knowledge, etc.) fall into epistemology. There are many more subbranches, but we have no space to explore all of them here.

Philosophy (up to 1930) was initially interested in first-order questions. These questions are the ones that can be understood by lay readers. These questions are related to everyday life, meaning they can be thought and understood, and tried to be answered by everyone. There are also second-order questions that are aimed at first-order questions. For second-order questions, try questioning the questions. That’s where modern philosophy is interested. These questions can’t be answered by lay readers or ordinary people. Today’s philosophy is aimed at other philosophers like science does. It’s not for ordinary people. As a reader, we need to separate the aim of philosophical work. As philosophy is nothing but thinking, philosophers also make mistakes and try to think about things that can be understood well by scientific methods.

There are five philosophical styles a reader of philosophy should be aware of:

1. The Philosophical Dialogue: The style Plato started, and probably there is no other greater than Plato. The work is read with a narrative and drama. Plato, or Socrates actually, discusses a matter with a group of people, and Socrates embarks on a series of questions—the fundamental ones—and tries to answer them and discover. Moreover, he tries to let readers discover themselves with narrative.
2. The Philosophical Treatise or Essay: This style has similarities with dialogue but missing the drama. It has a philosophical beginning, middle, and end. They state the problem first, go through the subject matter thoroughly and treat special problems along the way or last.
3. The Meeting of Objections: In this style, a question is asked first. Then the work goes over wrong answers one by one, and, at last, the philosopher gives their own answer. The objections are found to lead to truth. Or at least, that’s the thought in this style. This style hasn’t been used much.
4. The Systemization Of Philosophy: Spinoza and Descartes tried to systemize philosophy using mathematical techniques but failed so. These works are very difficult to write and to read. Also, this style is questionable: is it possible to write philosophical work with math?
5. The Aphoristic Style: This style leaves the impression on the reader that more is said than what is actually said; the reader does much of the thinking (e.g., Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra). The author often touches on a subject, suggests a truth or insight, and jumps to another.

What should a reader do?

• First, try to find the question or questions that a philosophical book tries to answer. That’s the most crucial one.
• Don’t take the shortcut of reading books about philosophers, their lives, and their opinions.
• Respect the terms and initial propositions of the books and understand them and share the same language.
• Pay close attention to the philosopher’s principles.
• Read the book with the method it’s written: a philosopher does nothing but think, and the reader has to do nothing but read, and, as we know, that means think about it.
• Make up your own mind. When a philosopher disagrees with an argument, they have long conversations with each other. It shouldn’t trouble you. You shouldn’t disagree just because someone disagrees. You need to think about it yourself and judge on your own and for yourself.
• When reading theology: Accept the fist-principles of the book while reading. If you don’t have faith, at least accept the principles, and put your judgment aside while reading. After that, make your own judgment, much like any other expository book.

How to Read Social Science

To understand how to read social science literature, we need to define what is social science. There are many fields considered in social sciences such as anthropology, politics, and economics, and some are left out (especially in universities), such as law and education. Universities divide them according to educational purposes: Law schools educate professionals who will work in the field while anthropology and sociology are dedicated to the pursuit of systematic knowledge of human society. However, while defining how to read social science literature, we will include all in social sciences, such as law, business, psychology, anthropology, economics, sociology, education, and public administration.

Reading social science literature is both easy and difficult at the same time. It’s easy because we often know the jargon, and narrative is something we’re familiar with. But knowing the jargon and metaphors also makes it hard to read. Because these terms have a very wide meaning and they are sometimes convoluted. Even the authors are often confused, and, as a result, readers, too. Moreover, readers often have perspectives and stand on the subject. It’s difficult to step back and read without judgment. Readers can’t easily put their disagreement aside and hear the author’s arguments as it is, accept them, and understand them fully. In hard sciences (math, physics, etc.) this is very easy to do because the terms and propositions are well explained at the beginning of the work (if not, they are concretely defined in the literature). In social science literature, it’s quite the contrary. The authors don’t define everything. Therefore, the first step of reading social science book is figuring out what kind of book it is. Then figure out terms and propositions, and arguments. But the question, “What of it?” requires considerable restraint on the reader’s part.

Moreover, social science reading requires reading multiple books at the same time. Because it’s difficult to just form a judgment reading only one book. As it includes narrative and the problems we mentioned above, we need another form of reading: Syntopical reading.

Syntopical Reading

So far, we have talked about reading one book. We abstained from exploring and reading multiple books. When we want to learn more about one subject, we must find books about it. Knowing multiple books are written on a subject is the first requirement of syntopical reading. Knowing which books to read is the second and much harder requirement. Meanwhile, defining the subject we want to read is a challenge. When we want to read about a topic, how do we draw the lines, borders, and limitations? We can start looking at literature, but where will we stop in our search for books to include without reading them? It looks like a paradox. Without knowing the topic, we cannot find books; without reading the books, we cannot draw the border in the topic. For example, if we pick the topic of love, how are we going to decide on the topic and create a bibliography in the vast literature about love? Without reading the literature, we can’t also draw a border.

This paradox is the essence of syntopical reading.

When we gather the books we want to read on a topic, how are we going to approach them? If we have a hundred books about the topic, it will take ten years to read them analytically. That’s why inspectional reading is an essential part of syntopical reading. Within those hundred books, you shouldn’t read any book analytically before you read all of them inspectionally. Inspectional reading will give you clues about the topic you are focused on and help you in your analytical reading of some books, and it will cut down your bibliographical list into a manageable size. If you’re good at inspectional reading, you’ll shortly recognize if a book says important things about the subject or not. Once you have identified, by inspection, that the book is relevant and you want to keep it in your bibliographical list, you can proceed to read it syntopically (not analytically). Analytical reading is for one book only.

Five Steps in Syntopical Reading:

1. Find the Relevant Passages: In syntopical reading, your concerns come first. You are not reading the book to understand and learn the author’s concerns and what they say; you are reading because you are trying to solve your problem. Therefore, after you identified the books, take another inspection and find relevant passages that fulfill your needs. Don’t do this step together with identifying the books because your understanding of the problem is often quite vague while identifying the books. Furthermore, the passages you find can be totally unrelated to what the author wrote that passage for. The author’s intentions can be different, but they are not the people in front here; you are the master of the topic, and you make the call. It’s about how you understand and interpret.
2. Bring the authors to terms: While reading syntopically and facing various authors, we see that each uses different terminology. They may use different words for the same thing or the same words for different things. That’s why we must force authors to use our language instead of using their language. This is very challenging as, so far, we have always tried to understand the author and put our thoughts and prejudices, and words aside. But we have to refuse to pick any author’s terminology and take even one more step and also refuse that no terminology will be useful for us (author’s terminology). That’s why we must translate authors’ language to our language and bring every author into our terms.
3. Getting the Questions Clear: After we face the challenge of getting authors to use the same terms and propositions, we still have a difficult job. The best way to ask them questions is to ask them in order. The questions must be framed in a way that helps us solve our problems, and simultaneously, all authors should be able to (imaginably) answer them. Most probably, authors have no answers in their books, but we have to think and assume as if they answer the questions, how would it be? What would they say? Moreover, the order of questions is important. While ordering questions, there are main categories in this order:
   1. existence of the phenomenon or idea we’re investigating.
   2. how the phenomenon is known
   3. the consequences of the answers we ask above. The order can differ from subject to subject; it is the general guideline.
4. Defining the Issues: If the questions are clear and we know that authors can answer in a way, then the issue is clear. However, we rarely see some problems: authors understand the question in the same way but answer in opposing ways. It’s up to the reader to sort out these answers and group them. It’s on the reader to relate these answers and join them as much as possible.
5. Analyzing the discussion: Our job as a syntopical reader is not merely to answer questions we prepared thoroughly. we have to accept that the truth can be found in opposing and conflicting answers, if it can be found at all. The truth can be found in the ordered discussion itself. To present this to our minds, we must ask questions in order, and we must be able to defend that order; we must show how the questions were answered differently and why. We must point to the feedback we examined to support our classification of answers. Only then can we claim that we analyzed the discussion and understood it.

The opinions in the discussion can all be wrong; none of them can be true, or each opinion can be part of the whole truth. It’s possible that all conflicting opinions are also false.

If an analysis tries to prove or disprove any opinion or perspective in the discussion, it joins as another perspective or voice to the discussion and loses its objectivity. The syntopical approach tries to look at all sides but takes no sides. We must try to take all possible sides and try to exhaust them even though it’s impossible.

While doing so, we shouldn’t join the discussion as a new voice; we should refer back to the original texts of authors and read them again and again and present the results to the audience, and quote the author’s opinions in their own language.

Good Books vs. Great Books

There are good books, great books, and books that don’t deserve anything more than skimming. Good books and great books are less than 1% of all the books out there. Within millions (or billions these days) of books, >99% don’t deserve more than skimming. <1% deserves analytical reading. And within that 1%, only less than around a hundred books demand returning to it after one analytical reading. Good books are books that stretch your mind. They make demands on you. Once you analytically read them, you can put them on the shelf and not return back because you milked them dry and got all you needed. It advanced and grew your mind.

When you come across a great book, and you analytically read and put it back on the shelf, something will call you back, and you’ll want to read it again. You don’t know what it is, but something inside you will tell you to read again, and when you do, you’ll see/learn more than what you got the first time. That’s a great book that adds more every time you read. And these books are very rare.

We should all seek books to stretch our minds. TV and radio just give information we don’t need. It’s like a drug: we use and want more of it without any gain on our minds. When we train our minds, we don’t deteriorate. Instead of artificial probs like TV and radio, we should seek out activating our minds.