BOOKS: HOW TO READ A BOOK

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PART 1. Four levels of reading. Primer on inspectional reading. Four basic questions. Note-taking. Habit-formation.
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First type of inspectional reading - Book skimming. At most an hour for the book. What is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?

Book skimming: taking out as much as possible out of a book in a fixed short period of time. Skimming technique:
1) Look at the title and preface of the book. Read very quickly.
2) Study the table of contents to understand book structure. Use it as you would a roadmap before taking a trip. Examining it should give a good idea of what the author has set out to do.
3) Study the index and the references to understand what are the key authors and themes that are cited. Look at the publisher's blurb.
4) Look at what looks like the key chapters in the book. Read opening and closing passages to see if they outline the key statements of the chapter. Listening to the basic pulsebeat of the matter, the signs of the main argument being made.
5) Turn the pages, dipping in here and there for paragraph or a couple of pages. Check out the opening and the ending 2-3 pages as authors rarely resist pressure to summarize the key thesis of their book at the end.

Second type of inspectional reading - Superficial reading.
* The rule to reading difficult books is simply to read it through for the first time without stopping to look up or ponder things you do not understand right away. Focus on the things you do understand and plough on.
* If you let yourself be stalled by everything you do not understand, you will get lost. These things will come to you on a second reading, but only when you've finished the book through and collected the mental map of all the things you do understand and see the gaps of what you do not understand.
* In the worst case scenario, understanding half of a difficult book is much better than not understanding anything, which will occur if you drop it after the first difficulty.
* If you consult footnotes, references, and dictionaries on seeing something unfamiliar - as is a typical response - you ward off the path of progress. In your effort to understand each small point, you will miss the big points, or never get to them. You will miss the forest for the trees.

Four questions
1) What is the book about?
2) What is the main idea / argument of the book, and the key sub arguments that the author makes?
3) Is the book true, in whole or in part? This is essentially “coming to own the book” part. This is the understanding part. In case of a practical book, this is whether the author’s objectives and means to reach them align with your understanding of what needs to be done.
4) What significance does it have for me?

The first two questions are for inspectional reading, the latter two parts are for analytical reading.

Three types of note-taking:
1) Structural — for speed reading
2) Conceptual — for analytical reading
3) Dialectic — for syntopical reading (essentially part of Dr KAOS is dialectic note-taking)

Other points
* Reading speed varies depending on the thickness of the material; in no book will it be uniform across the book.
* Double or triple your reading speed by following the words with a finger and making the eye follow the finger, and increasing the speed.
* There is no other way of forming a habit of operation than by operating. That is what it means to say one learns to do by doing. The difference between your activity before and after you have formed a habit is a difference in facility and readiness. After practice, you can do the same thing much better than when you started. That is what it means to say practice makes perfect.
* Knowing the rules is not the same as having the habit. When we speak of a man as skilled in any way, we do not mean that he knows the rules of making or doing something, but that he possesses the habit of making or doing it. Of course, it is true that knowing the rules, more or less explicitly, is a condition of getting the skill. You cannot follow rules you do not know.
* Reading is like skiing. When done well, when done by an expert, both reading and skiing are graceful, harmonious activities. When done by a beginner, both are awkward, frustrating, and slow.

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PART 2. Analytical Reading and its stages. Book classification. Practice vs. Theory. X-Raying a Book. Art of outlining. Finding meaning and determining author's msg.
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Analytical reading: what is being said in detail, and how?
Useful rules for analytical reading - first set of rules is about the structure.
1. State the unity of the whole book in a couple of sentences
2. Set fwd major parts of the books and show how they are organized into a whole
3. Define the problem or problems that author is trying to solve. What does he want you to do, in case of a practical book?

The second set of rules is about meaning / Interpretation

4. Figure out technical terms / key definitions / concepts that are instrumental to authors thesis
5. Recognize distinct propositions made by the author, sometimes in a single sentence. Determine which you agree with and which you do not. Machiavelli prince example. The important ones are the difficult ones as they add to your understanding.
6. Find the paragraphs that present central arguments of the author. If none, Construct the basic arguments in the book in your own words.
7. What problem/s does the author solve, and what is his solution? What did he not solve? How does he propose that you solve your problems, if it’s a practical book?

Other points
* Argument is the movement of thought. It may start with conclusion and then get on to list the reasons for it. Or it may start with evidence and bring you to the conclusions that follow from there.
* You should pause over the sentences that perplex you.
* Observe what author says he must assume, what he goes on to prove, and what he sees as self evident
* When someone is disagreeing with you, check first that they understood what you said — ask them to repeat it in their own word
* On what can be wrong with an argument — the author may be uninformed, misinformed, the thesis may be illogical or incomplete.

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PART 3. Practical books. History. Science and Math. Philosophy.
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* Every action takes place in a particular situation, always
in the here and now and under a particular set of
circumstances. You cannot act in general. The kind of
practical judgment that immediately precedes action must
be highly particular. It can be expressed in words, but it
seldom is. It is almost never found in books, because the
author of a practical book cannot envisage the concrete
practical situations in which his readers may have to act. Try
as he will to be helpful, he cannot give them concrete
practical advice. Only another person in exactly the same
situation could do that.
* I have skipped chapters on reading fiction (14 & 15) as these currently are not in focus. I have noted them however, and will return to them if necessary.
* Interesting commentary on the History of Peloponnesian War.
* Discussion of philosophy — theoretical, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy.
* key is to find what questions the author raises and what are the controlling principles of his approach.

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PART 4. Syntopical reading: five steps. Principles. Summary. Life and Growth of Mind.
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* The key to synthetically reading is to start with skimming / inspections reading to determine which of the books should be reviewed in more detail and acc to the right categorization that you have. Otherwise it will take too much time.
* in syntopical reading, it is you nd your concerns that are due to be served better, not the books’.

Five rules of the syntopocal reading
1) find he passages that are relevant for you. Not all book will be relevant.
2) impose a common terminology on the various authors — build up a set of terms that we can use from book to book on a particular subject
3) frame a set of questions that shed light on our problem
4) define the issues where authors disagree in answers to your question
5) analyze the resulting discussion. More general issues should precede less general ones and relations among issues should be clearly indicated.

FURTHER READING

Isaac Newton. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
Euclid. Elements of geometry.
Whitehead. Introduction to Mathematics.
Plato. Dialogues. Can follow with Aristotle.
Descartes