Reading has value. I have argued this at length before. If you are not convinced, then check out my post Why Can’t I focus? You could also have a look at READ BOOKS – an older post from the days when I thought the way to get people’s attention with my post’s title was to put it in ALL CAPS! Reading has value both for the knowledge and wisdom that it gives you access to but also for the ways in which it trains your concentration and builds your skill at focussing. You might have therefore gone to my post on What books Christians should read and you now find yourself, book in hand and wanting to read the book. But here is the question – How to read a book for all it’s worth? How do you read a book for maximum effectiveness?
You see most of us can read but it’s that second part that eludes us, maximum effectiveness in our reading. There have been plenty of times that I have read books but done it in an ineffective way and ended up gaining little benefit from the book on the first read through. Here is the point. I suspect many people who don’t read, don’t read because they get little value from the books they read. They get little value from it, because they read in the wrong way. Therefore – they do not see the point and they are right. If you don’t get value from the books you read then reading it is a waste of time.
So this is reading 101. Back to basics. How to read a book for all it’s worth? I am not talking about fiction here. The best way to read fiction, we can all agree, is in the beachside cafe/bar of the Barcelo Aguamarina in Cala Farrerra, Cala Dor with some kind of chilled fruity drink, or maybe nestled into a tub chair with a mug of coffee by the forward facing panoramic windows of the Viking Crown Lounge on the Splendour of the Seas as the ship sails through the Greek Isles and the sun sets. That’s just indisputable…
Let’s get the basics out of the way
- Read intentionally. This is all about consistency. It’s hard to gain much value from a book if you read for 20 minutes one day and then a month later pick it up again to read the next bit. It is almost a year since I started Tiago Forte’s book, Building a Second Brain. For various reasons, not related to the book itself, my reading has been sporadic. To maximise the value I get, I am going to start again.
- Try to read when and where you won’t be distracted. What this means is fairly fluid. You don’t want to set requirements on your reading environment that are hard to deliver. For example, only being able to read in the Viking Crown Lounge of a Cruise ship…. All I really mean is that you shouldn’t try to read in situations where you necessarily need to focus on something else….like whilst driving or having a conversation with someone. You might also want to avoid reading books on your phone unless you have no other choice…
- Make the most of short snippets of time. This is something I am really bad at, increasingly so. If you are reading consistently, and reading effectively, then you do not need a solid hour block, or more, in order to read. You can read a paragraph in the 5 minutes you have whilst waiting for a bus for example. Many do.
Your aim in reading has a massive impact on how you do it.
The aim in reading a non-fiction book is to gain wisdom. Wisdom could be defined as positive applied knowledge. Knowledge that has some kind of a beneficial impact on your life, your thinking and the choices you make. I was going to say something that transforms your life, but that sounds too grand. It could be a small change.
Understanding this is important. There are many people who make famous and grand claims to read a book every single day or something equally ridiculous. This is not your aim. Your aim is not to just read books but to gain wisdom. So you may claim that you have read 365 books in the past year…of what value is this? Show me the wisdom you have gained instead. Tell me what you have learned and how it has positively impacted you. Additionally, you are not reading to gain knowledge. We read to gain wisdom. There is a difference. Reading for wisdom requires more time to think on, process and consider the implications and applications of what we read.
So, how to read a book for all it’s worth?
Or, how should you read a book to mine it for as much wisdom as possible? I currently have a 3 stage process.
- Read the book, 1 chapter at a time and underline or highlight anything that resonates with me. If I am reading an eBook this is much easier and I may use a simple colour coded highlight system which would be one colour for most things I think are important to the logic and argument, another colour for things that are especially applicable to me and a 3rd colour for any quotes I want to save. In physical books, I really do not like the idea of writing in them, personally. You will find many who argue that you must. That is fine, but for me my compromise is to simply underline in pencil anything that resonates or forms a key part of the argument or key step in the logic.
- As I finish each chapter I will review it with my Notes app open. Here I will use the highlights I have made to summarise the chapter, save any quotes and flag up any thoughts and ideas over the impact of this and how I could apply the material, anything I disagree with and want to consider further or questions the material raises but doesn’t fully answer. If the book comes with suggested study questions, I may glance through these and use them if they are helpful. This normally takes about 20-30 minutes to do and is well worth it. Her
- As I finish the book I will then set aside a chunk of time, maybe 30 minutes to an hour depending on the book. I will review my notes on every single chapter, and quickly skim the things I highlighted. From this I will write a summary of the book. This would normally involve the logic of the book, step by step as you work through it and would major on the impact I think this book should have or needs to have on my own life and/or thinking.
It is worth acknowledging that for some books this process is easy and for others it is harder. For some books, either because of linguistic differences due to the time they were written or due to the complicated nature of the arguments being made, it will require a little bit of wrestling and thought to actually summarise this. Books that require this should not be avoided for this reason alone, but it is worth acknowledging that ‘Pierced for Our Transgressions’ is going to require a bit more time and consideration that ‘Will you be my Facebook Friend?’ I like to consider the Dwarves experience here. Some gold is found close to the surface and need simply be plucked from the rock. The Arkenstone however, required more work to gain. I am yet to unearth a Balrog, but there may be one so beware….
Is Skimming a good way to read books?
I need to touch on this before I finish as I have come across quite a bit of material that basically makes the point that the way to read books properly is not to actually read them…
There are many major advocates of skim reading books. They would say that there were too many books that they needed to read and get their heads around than they had time to sit down and actually read. This is the subject of an AI written tweet for the modern day if ever there was one.
“Most of us would love to read more books and articles but 95% of us are doing it wrong…..” You get the idea.
The argument is that you do not have the time to sit down and read every single word of a book,you don’t have time to actually read the book and you do not know when you open the book if it is actually worth your investment of time. So, there are two good reasons why actually reading through the whole book is not a good idea. The third is the idea that you don’t even need to read the whole book. You can understand the arguments and point of a book without reading it by adopting a process of skim reading.
There are many different approaches. The one I have heard most frequently is to get your head around the contents page, the flow of the book from chapter to chapter. Then read the first and the last paragraph of each chapter. This will normally introduce, conclude and summarise what is written within. From this, you can work out if any chapters are worth looking at in more depth, if you haven’t fully understood the point from the introduction and the conclusion for example or if the chapter looks like it will cover ground that you do not already know.
Thus, you can understand the argument of the book, fill in any gaps in your own knowledge and understand the authors approach to complicated ideas, without ever reading the whole book. Therefore, once you have everything you need from the book, you can discard it and move onto the next book.
This has always made me feel uncomfortable. Firstly, it seems a little arrogant to approach a book with an assumption that a lot of the content can be skipped over and the book still be understood. Second, we would argue that long form material such as books, is much better than the shorter stuff that is often produced today. But if we don’t actually engage with a book as long form writing, but merely look for the summary, then why not just read and write things in short form summaries. Lastly, and maybe this is a personality thing, it just feel plain wrong on two fronts. First it’s like coming and stripping the book for parts and discarding the rest and second, I don’t believe that you can claim to have read a book if you haven’t read the book without being a bit dishonest.
Charles Spurgeon once said this:
“A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them.”
Charles Spurgeon
The point here is simple and relevant to our topic. The more time you spend on a book, the more it impacts you. You might not gain more knowledge from it, but you might get greater wisdom, more of a change in your perspective and a deeper impact on your heart and life.
Reading is about more than just filling gaps in your knowledge so you’ve got more to say at parties. Reading is about shaping your mind and heart and impacting your life. I agree with Spurgeon. One book, thoroughly mastered, will have a greater impact on you than 20 books merely skimmed over for the knowledge.
This is not to say that getting an understanding of the structure and argument of a book is not helpful. But I see this as an aid to reading the book and not a substitute for it. At times, and for specific projects, I may not have time to fully read and digest the book, so I may strip it for the parts I need. But I haven’t read the book. This is something I am working through and thinking through at the moment as I am seeking to read a lot more.
One final thought
If you are reading this blog, and have ever considered writing your own material – especially long form material. Then check out my process of reading books and reverse it:
- Write a summary of the book and the impact and applications you want it to have. Map out the logic to make that argument chapter by chapter.
- Write a summary of and plan the logic out for each chapter, taking into account how it fits into the larger logic and argument of the book that you planned in step one. Highlight any specific points you want to make and any specific things that you want to say in each chapter.
- Write the book, one chapter at a time. You might only have snatches of time here or there, but if the logic of each chapter is planned out then in 20 minutes you could write a short section of your chapter and in 5 you could write a paragraph….
And behold – you have a first draft.
