How to read

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Therren

Therren

Puritan Board Freshman
What would be the best advice on reading books in general. I know some of us are engaged in in 5 books at a time. Some might just be 1 at a time. Not sure how Spurgeon or the puritans studied so much but any advice on talking a diverse 100+ book library. Including commentaries. Letters. Westminster confession. Devotionals. Complete works. Treatises. Systematics. Etc.
 
Always read with a pen and a notebook. I take copious amounts of notes. One of the best things you can do besides taking notes is writing a chapter summary. This forces you to think through what you just read and analyze the authors' progression of thought. It also helps you to retain the information. Always go back a review your notes.
I have a rather extensive library. Part of my job is to read the books we publish, along with reviewing books from other publishers. This requires me to read many books at a time on many different topics. For me to also maintain my personal studies, which is quite a bit, I have to schedule out my day accordingly. Block out parts of your day for different subjects.
Most importantly, to paraphrase Spurgeon, "visit many books but live in the Bible." Do not let your Bible reading take the backseat. Read Christian books with your Bible in hand. The next important thing is to read the Puritans! Read them often. They speak to the whole man; head, heart, and hands.
 
Some larger books (like a set or big ST) I read a little bit over a time. Stay consistent and you can knock off a big amount. Believe it or not, Rick Warren (of all people) read through Jonathan Edwards' works in one year just by being consistent.

Some books you can read a large chunk of and come back. You can really do this if you annotate while you read. I keep most of my notes on Google Docs. Yeah, I know, that means the CIA technically owns it, but still.
 
I guess what I’m more interested in knowing is that if it’s better to read one book only and the bible and go from book to book. Or Bible and a book and a commentary and a letter either newton/Rutherford and a hymn/ metrical psalm and a devotional like valley/diary of Brainerd. Obviously I do book most of day and a little section for everything else like a page or section. But I haven’t seen anywhere what are best reading habits to learn most profitably. A little here and there. Or one book at a time to focus solely. And Bible always stays in main circulation no matter what.
 
I think this will differ from person to person. Jacob, above, consumes books at a frightening pace. As to myself, I would love to read like that, but I'm starting to settle for reading a few books in my life over and over again. (Oh! and as mentioned above - man does not read if he does not have a pen in his hand)
 
Von said:
I think this will differ from person to person. Jacob, above, consumes books at a frightening pace. As to myself, I would love to read like that, but I'm starting to settle for reading a few books in my life over and over again. (Oh! and as mentioned above - man does not read if he does not have a pen in his hand)
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Believe it or not I am actually slowing down and spending more time on the classics like Gibbon, Dante, and Samuel Johnson.
 
Therren said:
What would be the best advice on reading books in general. I know some of us are engaged in in 5 books at a time. Some might just be 1 at a time. Not sure how Spurgeon or the puritans studied so much but any advice on talking a diverse 100+ book library. Including commentaries. Letters. Westminster confession. Devotionals. Complete works. Treatises. Systematics. Etc.
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It will depend on various factors. Some books and authors lend themselves to long periods of consecutive reading. For instance, last week I read c. 150 pages of Robert Traill a day and thus finished volumes 1 and 2 of his works in four days. Other authors from that era are less easy to read, and so you may only profitably read c. 10 pages of their writings at a time.

Reading complete sets of works by specific individual writers can also be somewhat more draining owing to the fact that you are constantly reading the same person. Still, it is a good discipline to get into reading complete works. Over the last year, I have concentrated on completing sets of works on my bookshelves (or sometimes online) that I had either only partially read or had not previously touched.
 
Reformed Covenanter said:
It will depend on various factors. Some books and authors lend themselves to long periods of consecutive reading. For instance, last week I read c. 150 pages of Robert Traill a day and thus finished volumes 1 and 2 of his works in four days. Other authors from that era are less easy to read, and so you may only profitably read c. 10 pages of their writings at a time.
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I thought I had the endurance for plowing through books. You are a machine! I have always been amazed at how you inhale books, especially John Owen's works. Do you take notes or highlight as you read?
 
Reformed Bookworm said:
I thought I had the endurance for plowing through books. You are a machine! I have always been amazed at how you inhale books, especially John Owen's works. Do you take notes or highlight as you read?
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I highlight and underline significant sections of what I am reading, and sometimes make notes in the margins or (occasionally) at the back of the book. Jacob tends to get more from his general reading than I do, as can be seen from his reviews; I only put that much effort into a book review if I am reviewing something for an academic journal. Most of my reading is just for personal edification and I use the blog to keep a record of significant, lengthy extracts.
 
I play CDs of Shakespeare's plays in my car, so that's how I work through his corpus. If you read Augustine's City of God for 30 minutes a day, you can finish it in about two months.

Get and absorb JP Moreland's Love your God with All Your Mind. He teaches you how to annotate. The more ambitious reader will tackle Mortimer Adler's How To Read a Book.

If you can ignore her "I'm Triggered/Getting the Vapors" politics, Susan Wise Bauer's book on Well-Developed Mind is really good.
 
I've Read Adler and van Doren and they never spoke on which was better. One or multiple books at a time. But I guess like we mentioned above. We’re all different when it comes to this. Most importantly I think is to read with pencil in hand and think and meditate while reading.
 
Therren said:
ive Read Adler and van doren and they never spoke on which was better. One or multiple books at a time. But I guess like we mentioned above. We’re all different when it comes to this. Most importantly I think is to read with pencil in hand and think and meditate while reading.
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Adler specifically said multiple books. He called it syntopical reading. It really depends on what type of book you are reading. If a book has a specific thesis that needs close attention, I probably wouldn't read more than that type of book at a time. If you want to capture the spirit and essence of an author, then the fewer books the better.

My long term reading habits:
*At night I read an essay by Samuel Johnson.
* I read a few sections of Gibbon every day.
*Every six months or so I pick a classic of literature (Milton, Dante, Shakespeare) and reread it, paying close attention to my previous annotations.
 
BayouHuguenot said:
Adler specifically said multiple books. He called it syntopical reading. It really depends on what type of book you are reading. If a book has a specific thesis that needs close attention, I probably wouldn't read more than that type of book at a time. If you want to capture the spirit and essence of an author, then the fewer books the better.

My long term reading habits:
*At night I read an essay by Samuel Johnson.
* I read a few sections of Gibbon every day.
*Every six months or so I pick a classic of literature (Milton, Dante, Shakespeare) and reread it, paying close attention to my previous annotations.
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yes the last category of reading he writes about is synoptical reading but those are more focused reading projects. I was just asking for some daily routine reading habits.
 
Therren said:
yes the last category of reading he writes about is synoptical reading but those are more focused reading projects. I was just asking for some daily routine reading habits.
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I do bible/Greek and Hebrew readings in the morning. During the afternoon, depending on my energy level, I try to tackle some tougher texts. In the evening when I am really tired I will work on some substantial fiction work (something by the Inklings) or Boswell's biography of Johnson.
 
Therren said:
What would be the best advice on reading books in general. I know some of us are engaged in in 5 books at a time. Some might just be 1 at a time. Not sure how Spurgeon or the puritans studied so much but any advice on talking a diverse 100+ book library. Including commentaries. Letters. Westminster confession. Devotionals. Complete works. Treatises. Systematics. Etc.
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I could never read more than three books at once and I always make sure that those three books are on different subjects, I would hate to get the books mixed up (Something that I have done twice in the PB already). I echo what others have said about having a pen in hand.
 
BayouHuguenot said:
Get and absorb JP Moreland's Love your God with All Your Mind. He teaches you how to annotate. The more ambitious reader will tackle Mortimer Adler's How To Read a Book.
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I'm reading that book by Moreland right now and really enjoy it. I haven't gotten to that part about annotation. I'm wanting to read Adler's work. I think there is a youtube reading of it that can be put on a faster speed. Sometimes that's how I get into certain works. I've listened to several novellas like Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and a few of Lovecraft's works. I find it to be beneficial since I'm a slow reader.
 
BayouHuguenot said:
I do bible/Greek and Hebrew readings in the morning. During the afternoon, depending on my energy level, I try to tackle some tougher texts. In the evening when I am really tired I will work on some substantial fiction work (something by the Inklings) or Boswell's biography of Johnson.
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In case you're interested, the best edition of Boswell's biography, in my opinion, is the 6th edition, edited by Edmund Malone and published in 1811. Malone had been a close friend of both Johnson and Boswell for many years, and had helped Boswell with the first edition (1791). After Boswell's death in 1795, Malone continued to edit several more editions, adding new material as it came to hand, ending with that last edition in 1811, not long before his death. All editions coming afterwards were done by people who had not known either Johnson or Boswell. Malone, with his firsthand knowledge, was their best editor.

Come to think of it, you might want to add Thomas Babington Macaulay's History of England when you get done with Gibbon. And Macaulay's essays. Heh.
 
I don't know how much time you spend on Facebook, but for me, cutting Facebook, twitter, the news media, etc and reading something whenever I would have looked at that is an easy way to get 30-60 minutes of reading a day.
 
Reformed Covenanter said:
I highlight and underline significant sections of what I am reading, and sometimes make notes in the margins or (occasionally) at the back of the book.
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I am still trying to bring myself to mark in books. For paperbacks, I have been easing into highlighting those. For hardcovers, I am still not able to. This would probably speed my process up. For Systematics, collected works, and other essential titles, I purchase them in Logos. From there, I digitally highlight and export quotes. Recently, I have started typing up quotes and notes in Word.
I started rereading Gurnall today and playing around with the note-taking function in Logos. As the Christian in Complete Armour is very dear to me, I've always wanted to write and compile devotional meditations on it for personal edification. This method may streamline the process.
 
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Reformed Covenanter said:
You need to think of your books as working copies rather than as ornaments. Like the scriptures, they were written for your learning - not to admire on your bookshelves.
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I know, brother. The main reason for not marking in them is the hopes of passing them down to my future children or a young man that is entering the ministry. My thoughts were they should be able to read without being distracted by my notes and markings. Maybe that is silly.
 
A lot of y'all have said that notetaking quickens the pace in which you can read. How is that? I end up reading slower and thinking through the content more. This is helpful for retention, but not for swiftness.
 
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