How to Read a Book
From the Introduction:
For centuries, philosophers have contemplated the meaning of Life. One convenient metaphor is that Life is a school, a never-ending series of lessons in the art of being Human. By this measure, all learning is worthwhile; the knowledge gained in the school of “hard knocks” is just as valuable as that gained from brick-and-mortar institutions.
Of course, we can avoid the “knocks” for ourselves by choosing to discover the truths revealed in the trials of others. The core of such self-education is a good dose of classics.
However, even a constant diet of Great Books is useless if we do not study in a way that helps us to properly digest their Ideas!
Readers may be divided into four classes:
- Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
- Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
- Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
- Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Product Description
33-page pdf download, graphics-rich, viewable on computer or other pdf-enabled viewer. (For nook or Kindle, consult your product manual or customer service for optimal viewing of pdf files)
Content Outline
- Curing our Academic Ailments
- Eyre Pollution
- Why Study?
- Envy, Erudition or Education?
- Where to Study
- Latin, Greek and Hebraic Models of Education
- What to Study
- How to Study
- Collecting Ephiphanies
- Learning a Book
- Annotation
- A Running “To Do” List
- Breaking the Routine
- Discussion
- Exploring the Author’s Sources
- Putting it All Together
- Seven Principles of Power Reading
- The L’Amour Principle
- The Shakespeare Principle
- The Austen Principle
- The Seuss Principle
- The Hugo Principle
- The Buddha Principle
- Breathing Fresh Eyre
- Summary of Key Points
About the Authors
Oliver DeMille
Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a cofounder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd Online.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Brad Bolon
Brad Bolon is the Founder and President of GEMpath, a veterinary pathology company devoted to biomedical research in the service of public and environmental health.
He holds earned doctoral degrees from the University of Missouri – Columbia (D.V.M.) and Duke University (Ph.D.), is a leading expert in experimental pathology, and is well published in several scientific fields.
Brad and his wife, Janine, have four children.
