/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10903805]

Should I read pic related?
>inb4 just read it, don't ask 4chan for confirmation
I don't want to waste my time.

[Anonymous No.10903807]

>>10903805
>Reading a book about how to read a book

[Anonymous No.10903808]

>>10903805
Bumpin' with some comfy images that inspire me to read.

[Anonymous No.10903813]

>>10903807
Damn, that was a fast. How often do you lurk here?

[Anonymous No.10903817]

[Anonymous No.10903823]

[Anonymous No.10903829]

[Anonymous No.10903833]

It depends on your level of literacy. The book ironically can be quite obtuse for the lay reader. If you have at least a bachelor's degree with significant exposure to the humanities and critical thought, then the book can be a good reminder of those principles and also meaningful supplementation.

So, OP, how would you rank yourself as a reader, and how do you typically approach books? The more you share, the better I can offer a recommendation.

[Anonymous No.10903837]

>>10903805
Just read the wiki. Save yourself the time, it is about the same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book

[Anonymous No.10903851]

If you don't know how to read a book, how could you read a book about reading books?

[Anonymous No.10903856]

>>10903851
If you only understand sentences in such stupid manner you should probably read it.

[Anonymous No.10903866]

>>10903805
How am I supposed to read this book though?

[Anonymous No.10903870]

>>10903866
Start from the beginning. The authors literally tell you how to read the book, even going so far as to offer multiple approaches.

[Anonymous No.10903881]

>>10903833
I'd say 7/10. I'm not a very confident reader, but I know I'm not stupid. Growing up fairly poor and in a very trashy family, I consider myself very under-educated. Also, being an amateur writer myself, I tend to read like one. I can't pretend to know everything about fiction, so I look for as much perspective as I can so to fully appreciate a work. I've read How to Read and Why by Bloom and How Fiction Works by James Wood, and both were very illuminating.

[Anonymous No.10903885]

>>10903805
I read through about half of it in high school. It was breddy decent. The gist of it was basically that you should always be reading actively instead of passively and if you catch yourself zoning out than correct the behavior and reread what you skipped over. The rest of the book was just techniques on how to achieve this and how to properly engage with a text. Stuff like note taking, asking questions, annotating while reading, etc.

[Anonymous No.10903897]

>>10903881
With that background, especially the other guides, I think this book shouldn't be too difficult. I do wonder, though, why you keep reading guides on reading instead spending more time with novels, poetry, etc. Reader Mortimer and Adler surely won't hurt you, but with your background, I wonder whether it would really help you.

[Anonymous No.10903903]

>>10903805
It's a waste a time for anyone who had a half decent education growing up. Some of the advice is sorta helpful as a reminder but if that's all you're looking for just read the wiki summary like the other anon said.

[Anonymous No.10903917]

>>10903897
The main issue is my confidence, I think I'm impeded by it. Doubtless Blood Meridian or Gravity's Rainbow, for example, are great, and I did love the books. I feel as if I understood the novels in their most important aspects, but, as with most other great works, I feel as if I hadn't grasped them properly. I have found that re-reading is extremely helpful, given time in between, and reading Disgrace by Coetzee and All the Pretty Horses by McCarthy, I definitely grew more confident, but really only over those individual works.

tl;dr I realize re-reading is definitely important.

[Anonymous No.10903925]

>>10903917
*re-reading Disgrace and All the Pretty Horses

[Anonymous No.10903940]

If you have an above average understanding of the classics then this book can be a good boost to your ego. Other than that—if you don’t read well, you might as well just read the classics.

[Anonymous No.10903951]

>>10903940
Thanks, anon. Reading KJV and a bit of Plato at the moment. Going from there to read the Greeks and I guess read the Western Canon (though I might die before I finish).

[Anonymous No.10903958]

>>10903805
I've actually read the book and the only thing I can say is don't waste your time.

[Anonymous No.10903985]

>>10903940
>>10903951
Also, to illustrate, I've come to better realize how reading the classics will help you understand how to read later works, even millennia apart. (I'd always known this of course, anyone with a half a brain would, but I didn't >learn< it.) When I had first read Blood Meridian, I didn't understand why the Judge would copy in his sketchbook all his findings then destroying the original artifact. I hadn't actually read Exodus before then, and so the commandment concerning "graven images" I had always thought, and was taught, that that concerned only images of God; yet according to the actual verse, art in general is treated in a Puritanical manner, saying that that which God has created cannot be recreated, for a man cannot be as God himself. And so I thought back on Blood Meridian and the Judge and realized the Judge must have been in competition with God, which surely I picked up on anyway, but through this I got it much clearly, and I could better appreciate McCarthy's approach. This is the kind of thing that also helps me grow as a writer, in watching other authors execute with such talent.

[Anonymous No.10904098]

>>10903837
Having a look at the reading list, it comes to my mind that if you've read all the "great books" before 25, you probably alienated yourself from society

[Anonymous No.10904132]

>>10903805
If you can read it, why do you need to read it? Logiclets get out.

[Anonymous No.10905666]

ABCs of Reading by Pound is better

[Anonymous No.10905760]

>>10903805
It really changes how you approach books. Before books were just one big fenticil - but now i understand their constitutive parts

[Anonymous No.10906650]

You should know that it’s poor form to inb4 as op.

[Anonymous No.10906669]

You should start with this, you'll have trouble reading a whole book if you can't first read a page.

[Anonymous No.10906786]

No, the book's advice is elementary, it isn't really worth the time.

[Anonymous No.10906869]

if you read nonfiction, yes. if not, no.

[Anonymous No.10906891]

>>10906669
*blocks your path*

[Anonymous No.10907200]

>>10903805
>I don't want to waste my time.
But that's exactly what you are doing right now my friend

[Anonymous No.10907306]

>>10907200
Dubs of truth. I hate this place.