Chapter 6: Pigeonholing a Book
We find ourselves in Part 2 of the book, which focuses on the third level of reading – analytical reading.
Why do the authors stress that their instructions in reading applies to reading whole books? (p. 59)
If you can read a whole book, especially a long and difficult one, you can read a short book, or a short story etc. Understanding how to read whole books also refer to reading lesser and more easily understood books as well.
What is the first rule of analytical reading and why is it so important? (p. 60)
The authors state “you must know what kind of book are reading, and you should know what kind of book you are reading, and you should know this as early in the process as possible, preferably before you begin to read.”
We may think it is easy enough to tell if we are reading a fiction or nonfiction, but sometimes it isn’t so clear. And it isn’t always clear by reading the tile. It is important to know if you are reading an expository title. And expository title conveys knowledge primarily but there are various types of expository titles and how the knowledge is being conveyed varies based on what kind of information is being conveyed.
How do we go about determining this for expositional books? (p. 61)
Inspect the book – give it an inspectional reading. Read the title, the table of contents, and at least glance at the preface, introduction by the author, and the index.
What can you learn from the title of an expositional book? Why is this often not enough? (p. 61-63)
Authors usually try to make their titles, or at least their subtitles, descriptive. However, the information we can get from the title or subtitle usually isn’t sufficient to help us classify the book we are reading, especially if we don’t have a clear idea of what classifications of books there actually are.
How do we distinguish between practical and theoretical books? (p. 68)
Practical has to do with what works in some way, at once or in the long run. Theoretical concerns something to be seen or understood. Books can teach knowledge, but not necessarily of application. Theoretical books teach you that something is the case. Practical books teach you how to do something you want to do or think you should do.
In our inspectional reading, while reading the title and subtitle can be helpful for determining what the book is about, it is often necessary to go a bit further to determine if the book is practical or theoretical. You should read passages in the book that are somewhat of a summary nature. Read beginning and end of a book as well. This can give us a much better understanding of whether a book is practical or theoretical.
What are the traditional subdivisions of theoretical books, and describe each briefly. (p. 70-72)
The traditional subdivision of theoretical books include history, science, and philosophy. The essence of history is narration and is chronotopic, meaning it deals with things or events that existed in a particular time and place. Science is less concerned with the past, and it treats topics that can happen at any time or place. Of note, the title of science books are usually less revealing than other books. Philosophy generally seeks general truths rather than particular events, either in near or distant past. In this sense, philosophy books are similar to science books, but their approach to asking questions or methods of answering these questions differ.
** Note – assume much of the content following each discussion question is a paraphrase and comes from the book How to Read a Book.
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