How to Read A Book 2

I'm glad to read this book. However, it's like trying to eat an elephant. The problem I have is that while I want to set it aside and try some of these things out, I'm also very interested in the end, mainly because that was the whole point of reading this book in the first place.

I will say one thing about the book thus far. I wish it was weighted a bit more to the practical tips. Not to say I can't work it out. Also, this book needed a better editor. It's not that there are extensive errors, but there are whole passages in the book that aren't particularly valuable in what they have to say. I find myself wanting to employ some of the tactics the book discusses, such as speed reading, but I am falling into my typical trap of not wanting to miss some key detail.

I think the idea of the key detail is exactly the problem I have with some of this advice. I'm a big believer that the devil is in the details. And honestly it's proven true in many cases. Someone's good idea turns out poorly because they didn't consider the impact of something. A company is doing something dubious and it only shows up in the footnotes of their filings. The counter example is also true. I've found some of the most thoughtful ideas of a book aren't at all the primary idea. There is a passage of Penn Jilette's book, Presto, where he describes a mentality with food that resonated with me, and led to a revelation on my part. I could have easily missed it- it was half a page and not necessary to any argument he was making in the book.

I guess it depends on what kind of outcome you are trying to accomplish. So far I feel like Adler and Luhmann have very different outcomes in mind. Luhmann was concerned about a fairly narrow band of expertise, so the speed of reading didn't really matter. He was more interested in figuring out which books would fill in the gaps of knowledge about a specific topic. The idea being that if you wanted to dig into a new topic, almost any book with a decent works cited would do, because really any single book was just an overview that allowed you to dig into the deeper sources. Adler so far has seemed more concerned with a volume of books. Early on he even reacted to the recent craze (early 70s) of speed reading. For him it seemed like a worthwhile tool to figure out which books are worthwhile for closer study, and on that point I agree with him. I almost wonder if it would be more valuable for me to buy some sort of summary service where I can get a quick summary of a book and then deep dive. I don't want to judge anything about Adler yet, because I'm no where near done with this book, but I wanted to go ahead and express my feelings as I go.