Ironically I started that one but never managed to finish it.
I still got something out of it though, so I suppose that's one way to read a book.
The basic advice I took from it is to treat a book like it's an artifact that you're investigating, almost like a city. You start by looking at the map to get an overview, then you can visit some of the major attractions, and then you can start to spend more time really getting to know some neighborhoods.
So with a book you familiarize yourself with the table of contents to know roughly how the argument or presentation proceeds; then you might for example skim the conclusion to see more clearly what the author is trying to accomplish; then you can pick a particular chapter or section that's of definite interest to you; and so on.
(This is all centered on reading for learning, not for pleasure.)
It's a lot like how to read a program. A book is presented much more linearly than a program, but actually nothing is really linear. Narrative plots may be, but you don't have to follow the plot of a monograph.
It makes me weirdly excited to think about book-length arguments as being programs, or functions in a kind of stoner misreading of the Curry-Howard isomorphism. So maybe you can even make an analysis of the "data structures" and "algorithms" used by a certain book. You might see one book as resembling a compiler, another as resembling a compression program. This may stretch the analogy too far.
But certainly books refer in a similar way that programs do. They make calls out to external sources, hopefully unambiguously declared and semantically versioned. Sometimes it's crucial to actually check those references. Truly reading a book might be a larger project than just reading one particular book.
I think there could be a deeper argument about relating the freedom of thought in the public sphere of literacy to the free software movement, which you can see a glimpse of in Richard Stallman's essay The Right to Read...
I am still early on in the book, but I agree I have gotten something out of it already. I always read the preface and the dust cover, but I never thought to look at the table of contents.
The part I am most interested in is in regards to the analytical reading and discerning the structure of the arguments.
Comments
I am currently reading How to Read a Book. I would recommend it as it covers how to read different kinds of text and analytical reading.
Its a practical book
Ironically I started that one but never managed to finish it.
I still got something out of it though, so I suppose that's one way to read a book.
The basic advice I took from it is to treat a book like it's an artifact that you're investigating, almost like a city. You start by looking at the map to get an overview, then you can visit some of the major attractions, and then you can start to spend more time really getting to know some neighborhoods.
So with a book you familiarize yourself with the table of contents to know roughly how the argument or presentation proceeds; then you might for example skim the conclusion to see more clearly what the author is trying to accomplish; then you can pick a particular chapter or section that's of definite interest to you; and so on.
(This is all centered on reading for learning, not for pleasure.)
It's a lot like how to read a program. A book is presented much more linearly than a program, but actually nothing is really linear. Narrative plots may be, but you don't have to follow the plot of a monograph.
It makes me weirdly excited to think about book-length arguments as being programs, or functions in a kind of stoner misreading of the Curry-Howard isomorphism. So maybe you can even make an analysis of the "data structures" and "algorithms" used by a certain book. You might see one book as resembling a compiler, another as resembling a compression program. This may stretch the analogy too far.
But certainly books refer in a similar way that programs do. They make calls out to external sources, hopefully unambiguously declared and semantically versioned. Sometimes it's crucial to actually check those references. Truly reading a book might be a larger project than just reading one particular book.
I think there could be a deeper argument about relating the freedom of thought in the public sphere of literacy to the free software movement, which you can see a glimpse of in Richard Stallman's essay The Right to Read...
I am still early on in the book, but I agree I have gotten something out of it already. I always read the preface and the dust cover, but I never thought to look at the table of contents.
The part I am most interested in is in regards to the analytical reading and discerning the structure of the arguments.