Before You Read

So now you’re ready to actually start reading one of the books covered on this site. Or are you?

Of course, you have the option of just picking it up and reading it through. But if you want to be able to understand the text thoroughly and retain more of the information you read, as well as be able to discuss it in depth with others, there are some additional steps you may want to take.

Pre-Reading Tasks¶

Establishing Understanding¶

Before starting a book, you should try to understand what the book is trying to do: what general argument it’s trying to make, what questions it’s trying to answer. Often, you can do this by looking at the summary on the cover, or by skimming the introduction.

Making a note of your current understanding of the topics the book addresses can help orient you as you’re reading; as you encounter new ideas and arguments, you can consider how they relate to your preconceptions. This simple act can give you insight into how your own mind responds to new information. (Thinking about your own thinking like this is called metacognition, by the way, and it can help you learn more effectively!)

Establishing Personal Perspective¶

Similar to the above process, but focusing on your personal experience over objective concepts. Reading books - even nonfiction books - is about so much more than absorbing the information on a page. It’s also about the experience, feelings, and motivations you as a reader bring to the table. So it’s also worth noting your feelings and beliefs about the topics covered.

This becomes especially important as you read works written from perspectives that are very different from your own. I certainly don’t ideologically align with all the authors of all the books I plan to highlight on here! But it’s important to read widely and to try to understand the internal logic of perspectives that you don’t agree with; it makes you better at structural analysis, and helps identify points of common ground for potential coalition-building (if you so desire).

Establishing Context¶

Books don’t exist in a vacuum. To fully understand a text, it can help to understand where its author is coming from: the time/place they’re writing in, the time/place they’re writing about, their personal ideology, their other activities/experiences, the other authors they’re in conversation in. Putting in a bit of effort to find this information can help you better understand why/how the author is choosing to structure their writing in a particular way.

Pre-Reading Guides¶

To help you with these processes (especially if you’re not used to going through them yourself!) I’m including pre-reading guides with each book covered on this site. If you’re starting a book without much background knowledge on its subject, the pre-reading guides can help you figure out how you want to engage with the book. Feel free to expand your notes from there!