
WHEN I WAS in my thirties, I began to read books differently. I felt a bit guilty about doing things this way, but, what the heck, no one was looking over my shoulders. I didn’t have anyone to please when it came to reading but myself.
I would pick up a book and check out the title page. Then, as long as it was non-fiction, I would go right to the end. I would read some of the very last chapter, usually a few paragraphs or, if interested, a few pages.
I would then go to the middle of the book, and read a few pages or paragraphs. After that, I would read the table of contents and scan the entire book quickly, with my thumb on the edge of the pages, and stop here and there, looking at chapter headings and random paragraphs. Maybe I would stop for a while in one place.
Finally, I would read some of the beginning. If the book seemed worth reading, I would later start from the very beginning and read the book in the conventional way, from start to finish.
To this day, I start many books at the end, whether they are digital or hard versions.
This method is very similar to one described by the late Mortimer Adler in his book How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, which I later encountered and which made me realize that it was okay to do things this way with certain types of books. (more…)