Jared Henderson - How to Read Better

Short Summary

Main recommendation: To become a better reader of hard books, focus on quality over quantity, practice regularly like a workout, read important non-fiction twice, take light notes on the first pass, choose books for deliberate reasons, and carry books with you to build a habit. The speaker stresses that the goal is becoming a good reader, not a faster one.

Key Points

• Reading hard works (Classics, philosophy, serious non-fiction, literary fiction) is a skill that must be trained, much like exercise, so expect some discomfort when returning to it.
• Reading one book deeply and struggling with it can be worth more than reading many books with little gained from them.
• Non-fiction, especially philosophy, is best read twice: the first pass grasps the author's overall point, and the second pass shows how the parts fit together.
• Take light, minimal notes during the first read rather than heavy note-taking, then decide what becomes a real note on the second read.
• Choose books for a reason, such as a topic or a particular author, so your reading forms a coherent path.

Details Worth Noting

• Concrete instructions:
  • If you have not been reading much, block off about 30 minutes, a couple of times a week, and devote yourself fully; increase duration and intensity over time.
  • First read: go through the book fairly quickly (the speaker calls this the "fast and dirty" method) to see what the author is trying to get you to believe or understand.
  • During the first read, use a pencil with a small check mark next to relevant passages and occasionally write less than a sentence in the margin. Optionally, use colored book tabs next to key quotes.
  • At the end of each chapter, write at most about a paragraph summarizing the argument and where the discussion stands; this should take about 10 minutes per chapter at most.
  • Aim for at most a page and a half to two pages of notes after the first read.
  • Second read: go back slowly, review the marked passages, decide which deserve to become notes, and add your own commentary.
  • To turn notes into a system, the speaker follows a method similar to Ryan Holiday's: lightly annotate, turn passages into physical note cards, then sort them. The speaker avoids apps and software.
  • Choose books for specific reasons, for example a topic like politics (the speaker lists John Locke, Adam Smith, Marx, John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum, Confucius, and Thomas Hobbes), or a single author (the speaker's example is Fyodor Dostoevsky, with plans to read three or four more novels in a year).
  • Build a daily habit: keep a book, Kindle, or audiobook with you, read for about 15 minutes during a longer lunch, or read a couple of minutes before turning off the lights at night.
• The speaker, who holds a PhD in philosophy, recounts that reading Hegel quickly once, without reconstructing his arguments, still gave a larger picture of his thought and improved a later paper, though that paper was not very good.
• Fiction is harder to reread soon after reading, so the twice-read advice is aimed mainly at non-fiction.
• The speaker says some books should be read simply because they sound interesting, but most should be picked for a good reason.

Bottom Line

Becoming a better reader comes from consistent, deliberate practice: read purposefully, reread non-fiction, take restrained notes, and make reading a habit you can fit into everyday life.