#27: How To Read a Book

Reading is a big part of every student’s life, and so today’s topic is how to read a book. To discuss this with me is Cherie Harder. She not only loves books and reading, but a big part of her role as President of the Trinity Forum is helping others learn to read well and love books as much as she does.

In this podcast we discuss:

• Why Cherie loves books
• Tips to help students read effectively (to understand well)
• Some of the challenges to reading well in our day of social media
• Reading different types of books differently
• How what you read shapes you
• How to read in ways that discern truth from error
• The value of courses in the humanities for non-humanities majors
• Why it is important to read those we disagree with 
• The value of reading books from other times and cultures
• Why to re-read a book now and then
• The value of reading with others and reading groups
• How to understand the book’s parts in light of the whole (and vice versa)
•  The importance of understanding genre (types of writing)
• When it is important to read an entire book and when it is not important
• How and when to consult  a book’s online reviews and CliffsNotes
• Are paper books or ebooks better?
• How to best read an ebook
• The value of pleasure-reading

Resources mentioned during our conversation:

• Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading 
• Alan Jacobs, Breaking Bread With The Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind
• C.S. Lewis, “On The Reading of Old Books” 
• Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth
• Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
• The Trinity Forum  (and their “Bookclub Box” and the Trinity Forum Conversations podcast)
• Jessica Hooten Wilson, Reading for Regeneration (a Trinity Forum Conversation)
• ________, The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints
• ________, Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice
• Maryanne Wolf, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain