
How to Read a Book [pdf] - robschia
http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf
======
oDot
What bugs me with some books is that they have excellent content but are
written redundantly. This leaves me reading 300 pages instead of 120.

Why can't this:

> We cannot talk to the designer, so we rely upon whatever information is
> available to us: what the device looks like, what we know from using similar
> things in the past, what was told to us in the sales literature, by
> salespeople and advertisements, by articles we may have read, by the product
> website and instruction manuals.

be written like that:

> Unable to contact the designer, we rely on preexisting information from
> sales material, salespeople, ads, articles or the device appearance.

or even:

> Unable to contact the designer, we rely on preexisting information.

Not every book should feel like Harry Potter, no matter how great the content.

~~~
ElijahLynn
So, a dirty secret in the publishing industry is that publishers often make
book deals based on the number of words you write, not how effective and
quickly you can convey your ideas.

This results in them rather taking a 300 page book vs 100 page book because
they sell the 300 page book for more than the 100 page book and thus make more
profit.

I personally have a friend who has authored many big name publisher books and
he is always telling me how many words he has to have done by X date. The
emphasis is on how many words, like 60,000 words.

Even though he can write a book that says the same shit in 20,000 words, the
book publishers don't want this, because they won't make as much money.

That really sucks for the tech industry, maybe for fiction it is fine, since
people just want more time outside reality anyways, but when you are trying to
gain knowledge, a 300 page book is not usually as good as a 100 page book.

:sigh:

~~~
kalid
This is a huge reason I preferred to self-publish. I have a math book that is
12-chapters (~90 pages total), written in a compact, friendly style I prefer.
There are too many incentives to pad out your writing when you are trying to
fill physical shelf space ("look impressive" vs "be useful"). Instead of a
page count, how about an idea count?

(I get the occasional feedback that people wish that the book was longer, they
want more topics, but never any individual chapter being longer...)

~~~
dogdogdogdog
What book? I'm on the lookout for a good math book.

~~~
kalid
Math, Better Explained

[https://www.amazon.com/Math-Better-Explained-Unlock-
Intuitio...](https://www.amazon.com/Math-Better-Explained-Unlock-Intuition-
ebook/dp/B006J5L3VU)

Check out a few articles on
[https://betterexplained.com/cheatsheet](https://betterexplained.com/cheatsheet)
and see if they fit your style.

~~~
scrollaway
Oh Kalid it's you! I haven't bought your book (and I'll remediate to that
right now), but I've followed all your posts, they're fantastic.

Go buy this guy's book :)

~~~
kalid
Thanks Jerome =).

------
feklar
Somebody here once recommended when doing any kind of text with exercises to
open to a random chapter and attempt the first exercise. If you can't do it
research through the index/book where the information to help you solve it is
likely to be found and repeat for all exercises. I've been doing this ever
since, finished my library of unread books I had collected over the years but
never had the time to read.

~~~
copperx
What kind of books did you read using this technique?

Also, did you end up reading most of the text?

I'm a bit surprised that your techinque is more efficient than reading the
chapter and then doing the exercises, because most of the chapter's content is
on your short term memory and you know exactly where to find the information
if you need to review a concept to solve the exercise.

~~~
greenshackle
It's not about efficiency, it's about effectiveness.

Sequential reading may be more efficient, but it's infinitely less effective
if you never pick up the book to read the next chapter.

It's a workaround for the 'I started this useful, interesting book, read 50%
of it, then never touched it again, for no good reason' bug. You solve the
problem by nerd-sniping yourself with an exercise.

If you don't experience this bug perhaps it's not good advice for you.

My 'technique', if I want to read a particular book, is to carry it, and no
other book, in my backpack. I'll inevitably read it in my down times.

~~~
Graziano_M
Yeah I have the problem of reading too many books at a time. I am in the last
few chapters of an awesome but technically dense book, but I keep putting it
off because it's more fun to spend an hour reading "The Two Towers".

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> It’s satisfying to start at the beginning and read straight through to the
end. Some books, such as novels, have to be read this way, since a basic
principle of fiction is to hold the reader in suspense. Your whole purpose in
readingfiction is to follow the writer’s lead, allowing him or her to spin a
story bit by bit.

Depends.

Here's how my (much) younger self used to read novels:

a) Start at the begining

b) Read a few pages until you're reasonably sure all major characters have
been introduced.

c) Skip to the end to find out if they're all alive and well at the end.

d) Skip back, approximately to where you were before (c)

e) Read a few more pages until something major happens

f) Skip a few chapters ahead to see how the major happening pans out

g) Repeat from (d) until it all goes quiet again

h) Skip a random number of pages ahead (but no more than the size of the book;
duh)

i) If that makes no sense, return to where you were before (approximately)

j) Repeat from (h) until you've read the whole book.

I read about all of Jules Verne, Hector Malot, Enid Blyton and A. J. Cronin
like that (I know, right?).

On the other hand I remember a particularly tedious passage in _20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea_ where several pages passed describing various molluscs found at
the bottom of the sea. I actually read it all very carefully because I was
curious to see how much it would last for and whether there was some bit of
plot hidden in between the discussions of various species' chiralities etc.
Jules Verne could eat Stephen King for breakfast when he got into his stride.

I only stopped doing that sort of thing to books when our lord Umberto Eco
decided to write Foucault's Pendulum to punish me for the mistreatment of
literary works. That hurt.

~~~
yomly
> On the other hand I remember a particularly tedious passage in 20,000
> Leagues Under the Sea where several pages passed describing various molluscs
> found at the bottom of the sea.

This reminds me of the passage in The Picture of Dorian Gray which amounted to
some detailed description of gemstones or worse, the chapter in The Great
Gatsby that was essentially a list of names.

I usually aim to read a text in its entirety out of respect for the author,
but I had no qualms fast-forwarding through those sections.

~~~
gknoy
I still laugh about the chapter in the middle of Les Miserables where the
author spends something like 20-30 pages talking about the battle of Waterloo.
It was interesting, and very detailed, but had nearly no connection to the
plot of the story (other that one of the people there left an heirloom for a
character, or something?). Later, he did the same thing for the sewers of
Paris, and I believe I skipped that. ;)

~~~
csdrane
Similarly, Moby Dick has tens of pages describing the particulars of the
whaling industry.

~~~
huehehue
And Michael Crichton's Airframe has tens of pages describing airplane parts
and their inspection processes.

I love it when books do that -- fortunately, it's easy to distinguish between
technical passages and drivel.

------
hoodwink
This is basically a modernized, summary version of Mortimer Adler's classic of
the same name which changed my life. Beforehand, I was reading much too
quickly, letting information, and more importantly understanding, pass through
me. It's better to be well-read than widely-read.

~~~
komali2
That's kind of funny because there's a major trend now following people like
Elon Musk who promote skimming through engineering texts. The idea being that
you're not going to learn rocket science reading a dissertation on rocket
fuel, but you will become aware of things you hadn't done before, and retain
random knowledge that could be useful and will be useful as you continue
skimming more and more technical books.

~~~
swiftisthebest
Musk is a CEO, not an engineer.

~~~
TeMPOraL
He is a CEO _and_ an engineer, one known in particular for going from zero to
rocket scientist level impressively quickly.

~~~
oh_sigh
Are you claiming that Musk does engineering work for SpaceX?

~~~
TeMPOraL
From what I heard yes, he does, if you count his nanomanagement. Moreover, he
most definitely did initially - SpaceX didn't start with full complement of
trained aerospace engineers on board. He learned his rocket science before
starting the company.

------
combatentropy
If you want to be a friendly explanatory writer:

1\. Adopt the inverted pyramid structure. This means to front-load your
conclusion, to put the summary sentence first. In other words, if the reader
stops reading at any point, they know the answer, at least in outline.
Continued reading just results in more and more detail, more and more zoom-in.

2\. Read _The Elements of Style_ (100 pages) or _On Writing Well_ (just need
to read the first four chapters) or both. Both are short. These will help you
word things efficiently. This doesn't mean you're leaving things out. But
mysteriously human language is like computer languages in this: there are
infinite ways to write something, and some ways are shorter than others ---
shorter by several times!

------
znpy
My rant from when I was reading "getting things done" by David Allen: on about
250 pages, the first 80-100 pages are about how good is the GTD system.

I ALREADY GAVE YOU MY MONEY, I DON'T NEED TO BE CONVINCED, I'M ALREADY SOLD,
JUST TEACH ME THE GODDAMN THINGS.

~~~
macintux
I have similar complaints about most YouTube "how to" videos. The first few
minutes are typically spent providing context which I usually don't need,
especially if I'm rewatching. All digital content should have a "jump to point
X if you don't need background" option.

~~~
TeMPOraL
This is actually recognized as the Wadsworth constant[0]. It used to be the
case, though it doesn't seem to work anymore, that you could add
"&wadsworth=1" to the YouTube video URL to immediately jump to 30%.

[0] - [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-wadsworth-
constant](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-wadsworth-constant)

The original comment by /u/Wadsworth that coined it: "For EVERY youtube video,
I always open the video and then immediately punch the slider bar to about 30
percent. For example, in this video, it should have just started at :40.
Everything before :40 was a waste. This holds true for nearly every video in
the universe."

~~~
macintux
Fascinating, thanks!

------
BellsOnSunday
Ezra Pound's ~ABC of Reading~ changed the way I read poetry and literary
fiction. When, much later, I started to be interested in technical things I
don't think I found it too hard to adapt, but I still focus on style,
allusion, irony and so on in the things I read. That's generally a recipe for
disappointment of course but when you come across technical writers with a
voice of their own it's a lovely surprise. Wilfrid Hodges, for instance, is a
great writer who becomes a friend as you work through his books.

------
Isamu
> Know the intellectual context

This is often what I am most left wondering about. I guess nowadays I end up
trying to wikipedia the heck out of the topic, or look for similar books.

What do you do?

Also I was confused by

> Read the whole thing!

Which makes me think of careful reading, but they mean "read straight through,
not stopping for details."

I had been unable to do this for years. Eventually I was able to just plow
through a book and it turns out to be more helpful than I imagined. It is
often better to proceed than to be stuck, putting it aside forever.

~~~
TeMPOraL
For now my "hack" is to "just read the damn book". I don't care anymore if I
get 100% out of it, because I keep finding myself surprised what I can
suddenly recall as needed anyway. But you won't have anything to recall if you
don't read the book.

------
andai
Has anyone here tried PhotoReading?

It's the same principle of reading the same text several times, along with an
additional preparation by "photo reading": taking in the whole book with a
relaxed gaze, one page at a time (about 1 second per page).

This makes it easier to find relevant information later, as you instantly
familiarize yourself with the high level structure of the material: the
relationship between the layout of the page and the information contained.

Highly recommended!

------
Seanny123
I literally just wrote a book review on this goddamn thing with a summary for
hackers. This book is way too wordy and redundant.
[https://medium.com/@seanaubin/book-review-how-to-read-a-
book...](https://medium.com/@seanaubin/book-review-how-to-read-a-book-
cb10ed8c2d13#.b1ytcobcz)

~~~
nimnio
Did you click the link? This isn't "How to Read a Book" by Adler.

------
thallukrish
I have seen the following happen to me while reading books.

Event driven - you go back to a book based on thinking around a problem and
look for information around it. I have found this very effective to understand
the content, especially something not so trivial and those that you may not
get by passive reading. However, this requires more time and effort from you
in terms of self-thinking around problems.

The second way is passive reading - just read because you got interested in
the topic. You don't understand a lot of it immediately, and so either your
interest may carry on and you may get more than where you began or you may
give up.

But if you give up, in the interim you may encounter some things related to
what you read and you go into the first mode. Or you find that what you
started is not your cup of tea at least for the moment. You iterate over other
topics of interest.

------
0xCMP
Does anyone use the citation advice he gives? If so, what tool do you use? It
sounds like it might be a good way to store the important parts of books,
especially when you get 100s-1000s of books in.

------
ryanmarsh
May I offer this as an alternative?

[https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-
book/](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/how-to-read-a-book/)

------
wonkaWonka
...and when you're ready to write your own book, here's a helpful text that
can guide you through the lumber selection process, before you start producing
the pulp that will go into the paper for your book:

[https://www.amazon.com/Identifying-Wood-Accurate-Results-
Sim...](https://www.amazon.com/Identifying-Wood-Accurate-Results-
Simple/dp/0942391047/161-4038110-1441338)

------
andrepd
I have to say this is contrary to my experience. For example, whenever I try
to do what this tells, and jump ahead and skip around the text to try and
grasp the general points I invariably get confused and lost because some
detail from further back is need to understand the text further ahead. It's
only when I invariably need to start over and read it properly that I
understand and assimilate the knowledge.

------
mathattack
I thought he was referring to this [0] which is a more detailed plan of attack
along similar lines.

[0]
[http://www.evergladeshs.org/ourpages/auto/2015/5/28/58122395...](http://www.evergladeshs.org/ourpages/auto/2015/5/28/58122395/Adler%20Mortimer%20-%20How%20To%20Read%20A%20Book.pdf)

------
kercker
I am afraid to skip a book, because I am afraid to miss some important things
that I just skipped.

I can't easily get over this feeling, when I'm reading a book, so I keep
reading every detail of the books I read.

I also think that taking notes will take too much time, so I'm always
reluctant to take notes when I am reading something.

After reading this directive, I will try the steps it says.

~~~
dredmorbius
I got over that attitude when I walked into my uni library the first time.
Seven million volumes. No way I was going to read them all.

I focused on specific interests, though also sampled other areas.

------
Mironor
> 1-3 pages of notes per 100 pages of text is a good goal to shoot for; more
> than that is often too much. I often used a technique of transforming a book
> into a mindmap, it's much more visual and readable than a simple plain text
> with notes.

------
ptio
Is this a good technique for reading programming and technical books as well?

~~~
tapan_k
I have the same question.

I recently read a programming book on Go [1] and this book reminded me of the
pleasure of reading a programming book cover to cover. For a reader whose
purpose is not to just get through the coursework (as in a graduate school), a
well written programming book can be as pleasurable a read (if not more) than
the most gripping novel. The author's style of writing has a lot to do with
the readability of a programming book. I think.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-Addison-
Wesley-P...](https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-Addison-Wesley-
Professional-Computing-ebook/dp/B0184N7WWS)

~~~
magic_beans
It sounds like you had the good fortune of reading a well-written book. Any
well-written book, regardless of subject matter, will be a pleasure to read
cover to cover.

------
ElijahLynn
Fantastic read, I have been reading technical books cover to cover, slowly. I
am going to try this new technique out over the next year, it will take time
but I am game.

------
zzrg
I like reading physical books, but don't like writing directly on the pages.
Does anyone have a good alternative?

~~~
shanusmagnus
I don't mean to be flippant, but can I suggest trying really hard to get over
that hangup? I used to feel terrible for marring them, now I feel like it's
not mine if it doesn't have my writing all over it. Writing in the books has
been an amazing boost for my relationship with the ideas contained therein.

------
dominhhai
read without any purpose is more valuable, sometime. Without valuable, you can
meet some interesting valuable things in unexceptional way. Somethings like
other world view, life view...

------
op00to
Has anyone found an epub/text version of the same content?

~~~
emptybits
I was able to save it as RTF and it preserved formatting quite well. (Used
DEVONthink, FWIW.)

------
clifanatic
And, if it's a math (or math-ish) book that works through example problems:
try to work the example problems yourself, based on the material preceding it,
_before_ reading the author's worked-out solution. Then you'll be able to make
a lot more sense of the presented answer. (I wish I had figured that out as an
undergraduate).

------
douche
I love the fact that "How to Read a Book" and "How to Write a Novel" are back-
to-back on the front page.

------
to_string
A book about how to read a book ? Hmmmm

~~~
logicallee
If you actually read and follow it, it's only 30 pages.

------
soufron
Aren't You supposed to learn that shit at school? Like when you're ten? Man,
Silicon Valley engineers are so uneducated :)

