Strange Loops: Reading a Book on How to Read a Book • Zettelkasten Method
Strange Loops: Reading a Book on How to Read a Book • Zettelkasten Method
How to transform insights from “How to Read a Book” by Adler/van Doren into actionable strategies to improve your reading.
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I like the idea of the reader deciding on the uses of a book, deciding even to skip what’s not useful to this reader at that moment. One of the best little pieces about the nature of reading that I know is called “On Reading a Video Text” by Robert Scholes, from his book Protocols of Reading. https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/reading-video-text Scholes says a good reader is both open and doubtful.
Reading well can be described as a process of illustrating and testing. When the author says something that seems promising we take it up as a temporary thought experiment. We look around for ways to illustrate and test the something the author has said. If the something seems true and useful in helping to notice and explain a bit of the world around us or inside us, we should be able to illustrate its explanatory value somewhere in our knowledge and experience. If the something’s explanatory value is perhaps limited or faulty in some way, we should be able to test it against our prior knowledge somehow and see where it holds up and where it falters. We want to carry away something whose value we have both illustrated and tested, for ourselves. Having carried out that thought experiment for a while, we know that the something has perceptual and explanatory power. We know that it works the way a lens works, helping us to notice and to ponder what we notice, for our own purposes.
Well, it sounds wise, I only remember one specific book that recommended "attacking a book" as a form of struggle and strategy (it was actually a reading strategy), and also the intention is what counts, not all books are read in the same way and at the same speed, but there must be a central intention that channels all that potential to process large amounts of diverse and continuously circulating information. (Self-learning life)
If reading is mastered, the only thing missing is writing (Zettelkasten), everything else is the least important.
Hmm....how about the "doing"? What's the point of all that learning if it doesn't get applied in various ways? The "doing" provides the most benefit to both yourself and others. I suspect you know this
, but it doesn't hurt to reinforce the idea.