Adler, Mortimer and Charles van Doren. How to Read a Book. Revised and updated edition. New York: Touchstone, 1972.
"In our experience, a certain number of students at those advanced levels of schooling have some capability of reading actively and
analytically. There may not be enough of them, and they may be far from perfect readers, but they at least know how to get at the meat of a book, to make reasonably intelligible statements about it, and to fit it into a plot or plan of their subject matter. But their efforts are enormously wasteful because they do not understand how to read some books faster than others."
analytically. There may not be enough of them, and they may be far from perfect readers, but they at least know how to get at the meat of a book, to make reasonably intelligible statements about it, and to fit it into a plot or plan of their subject matter. But their efforts are enormously wasteful because they do not understand how to read some books faster than others."
I've probably read this book, and this particular passage, dozens of times since I first encountered it in high school. But only in graduate school has the relevance of this book really begun to emerge to me.
We are a not-for-profit educational organization, founded by Mortimer Adler and we have recently made an exciting discovery--three years after writing the wonderfully expanded third edition of How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren made a series of thirteen 14-minute videos on the art of reading. The videos were produced by Encyclopaedia Britannica. For reasons unknown, sometime after their original publication, these videos were lost.
ReplyDeleteThree hours with Mortimer Adler on one DVD. A must for libraries and classroom teaching the art of reading.
I cannot over exaggerate how instructive these programs are--we are so sure that you will agree, if you are not completely satisfied, we will refund your donation.
Please go here to see a clip and learn more:
http://www.thegreatideas.org/HowToReadABook.htm