Book Review: How to Read a Book — Why Adler and Van Doren Still Matter

Hi friends,

There are books that teach you facts, books that entertain, and then there are books that quietly change the way you approach knowledge itself. How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren falls firmly into the third category. First published in 1940 and updated in the 1970s, it has become a classic of intellectual self-discipline – a manual for learning how to think with books, not just through them.

The book sets out four levels of reading: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical. The first two are familiar, even obvious. But it is the third and fourth – analytical and syntopical reading – that transform reading from passive consumption into active engagement. For me, these levels resonate most when thinking about how I, as a solicitor, approach legal authorities, cases, and commentary.

Reading as Dialogue

Adler insists that reading is a conversation. Especially in relation to non-fiction or ‘expository’ works, as he puts it. I agree. A book is not an object to be absorbed but a partner to be questioned. Too many of us – professionals included – plateau at inspectional reading. We skim the table of contents, glance at a headnote, or scroll to the conclusion of a judgment. Useful, yes, but insufficient. If all we do is harvest the apparent answer, we miss the architecture of reasoning that supports it.

Analytical reading, by contrast, forces us to wrestle with the text on its own terms. What is this book – or legal judgment, for example – really about? What question is it trying to answer? How does the author or judge structure their reasoning? Where are the assumptions, the unstated premises, the leaps? And finally – the most important question for a lawyer – is it true? Or at least, does it withstand scrutiny?

Analytical Reading in Legal Practice

In practice, analytical reading mirrors how we lawyers are trained to handle authorities:

1. Classify the text. Is it a statute, a binding precedent, persuasive commentary? Much like Adler’s distinction between theoretical, practical, and imaginative books, each requires a different mode of engagement.

2. Summarise the unity. Reduce the case to its ratio decidendi (if you know you know, law students!) the legal proposition that decides it.

3. Strip away the dicta and commentary. Trace the structure. Note how the judge moves from issue to conclusion. Is the reasoning cumulative? Or does it depend on a single decisive finding? Ask the four questions. What is this authority about? What is being said in detail, and how? Is it true – does the reasoning follow, and is it consistent with higher authority?

4. What of it – how does this case affect my client, my advice, or the development of the law?

This is not rote reading; it is adversarial reading. Just as we cross-examine witnesses, we must cross-examine texts.

The Pinnacle: Syntopical Reading

If analytical reading sharpens our understanding of one text, syntopical reading broadens it across many. Here, Adler elevates reading into scholarship. You don’t simply compare two books; you orchestrate a dialogue among dozens, setting the agenda yourself.

This has direct application to law. Take, for example, the question of design liability under a standard form Design and Build construction contract. A single case may illuminate part of the issue. But to advise a client meaningfully, one must set that case against others: how the courts have interpreted ‘reasonable skill and care’ in different contexts, how statutory duties under other legislation interact, how academic commentary critiques the shifting balance between fitness for purpose and negligence.

Syntopical reading allows us to construct that wider map. It is not enough to say, ‘In URS v BDW, the Supreme Court held X.’ The real question is: What conversation is that case part of, and where does it leave the unresolved tensions? By reading syntopically, we stop treating authorities as isolated answers and start seeing them as participants in an ongoing dialogue.

Why This Matters

As I say above, most readers – and many professionals – stop at inspectional reading. We skim, highlight, and move on. But Adler and Van Doren remind us that the true rewards of reading lie further up the ladder: in analysis and synthesis.

For lawyers, analytical reading sharpens our capacity to interrogate a single authority, while syntopical reading empowers us to construct an argument across a field of authorities. Together, they transform us from mere consumers of legal texts into active participants in the law’s development.

In that sense, How to Read a Book is more than a manual. It is a quiet manifesto: to treat reading as a discipline, a craft, and even – when done at its highest level – a form of creation.

Anyone with an interest in reading deeply should read How to Read a Book.

Thanks for reading!