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One of the most important lessons I've learned about reading hard books is

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One of the most important lessons I've learned about reading hard books is

that you can't read them the same way you read regular books.

Now, that may seem like a really obvious statement,

but I think that's a pretty common misconception.

It's this idea that it mostly comes down to effort.

You sit down, start on page one,

maybe take some notes, but you just keep pushing yourself through until you get to the end,

and that's all there is to it.

But this kind of thinking overlooks the fact that books are difficult for different reasons.

And we're going to talk about what some of those reasons are here in just a minute.

But you can't approach them all the same way because every book requires something different from us as readers.

A different level of attention or different strategies.

So in this video, I'm going to walk you through a simple process

that anyone can use to read those books that might otherwise feel a bit intimidating to pick up.

So, the first thing I try to do is identify exactly what it is that's making the book difficult.

And you can usually narrow this down to four or five main reasons.

The first is structure.

And basically, this is how the book is organized or how the ideas build on each other.

Some books are written in a way where the ideas or the arguments are typically explained slowly,

sometimes across multiple sections or across multiple chapters.

And you often need ideas from later in the book to fully understand what you read earlier.

So even though the book is laid out in sort of a linear fashion,

your understanding of it isn't linear,

and it feels difficult mainly because of the way it's organized.

Here I'm thinking of a book like The Theory of Justice by John Rawls.

I've been working on this one for a really long time.

It's been a huge challenge for me

because Rawls builds arguments slowly throughout the book and he often uses ideas that often don't make sense until much later.

So a book like this is particularly difficult

because you can read every sentence and still not understand earlier parts until you've seen the whole structure.

Another issue could be the language.

If the writing is dense or technical or just stylistically difficult,

maybe the sentences are long or the vocabulary is unfamiliar.

The author is using abstract language that kind of slows everything down.

In that case, the difficulty is happening at the level of prose.

A really good example of this is Ulysses by James Joyce.

He uses unconventional sentence structures and there are frequent shifts in style and stream of consciousness.

Even simple scenes are kind of hard to work out sometimes because of how they're written.

And then there's conceptual difficulty.

So here the writing might be completely clear.

You know, that's not the problem.

The problem is that the ideas themselves are are a little complex or maybe difficult to process.

You understand the words and the sentences,

but you don't quite understand the ideas.

For this one, I'm thinking of Steven Pinker's Rationality.

Now, this was written for a general audience,

and he's actually really good about avoiding heavy jargon.

So the language is really accessible.

That's not really the problem.

The issue is that the books draw on ideas like probability,

logic, decision theory, Bayesian reasoning and statistical thinking.

So the average person can probably understand the words and the sentences without any trouble,

but they might still struggle with some of the concepts.

There's also the problem of having a knowledge gap.

Now, I talked about this in the last video.

Sometimes the problem with reading a challenging book is simply that you don't know enough about the topic.

Reading these kinds of books is kind of like walking in on the middle of a conversation.

You could probably follow it if you had been there from the beginning,

but since you weren't, then it might be a little difficult to follow.

For this one, of course,

I'm thinking about Peter Nichols' Modernism, A Literary Guide.

The writing itself is pretty clear,

but it assumes you already understand a lot about literary history,

the different movements, and all of the relevant authors,

and all of the relevant terminology.

And of course, it can be a combination of two or three of these.

You know, a book might be hard because it uses dense language

and it assumes background knowledge or because the ideas are abstract or complex and the argument unfolds in a nonlinear way.

Now, once you've identified what's making the book difficult,

the next step is to think about how you're going to overcome that difficulty.

So if it's the structure,

for example, don't start reading on page one.

Look at the table of contents.

You know, see how the book is organized.

What are the main parts?

If there's a preface or an introduction,

read it, really study it.

You know, a lot of authors will tell you exactly what they're trying to do

and exactly how you should approach their book.

So pay attention to that direction if it's provided.

Then skim a few chapters.

Look at the headings.

Look at the subheadings.

You know, look at the tables or any graphics if there are any.

Basically review anything that will give you a sense of how the book is organized.

Now, if the issue is language,

it might take a little more time

because you're going to want to translate difficult sentences into your own words instead of just trying to push through it.

So, when you come across important terms, don't just notice them.

You should define them.

Look them up.

You might even think about creating your own glossary.

Having said that, though, be careful not to overdo it.

You don't want to slow the pace so much that the whole experience becomes unbearable or overly cumbersome.

Sometimes the surrounding words and sentences are enough to clue you in to what the word actually means.

So, lean into that wherever you can.

In any case, you're probably going to be working with long, complex sentences.

So the point is to just try to reduce how overwhelming the text feels.

And if the ideas themselves are the problem,

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if they seem too complex,

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then you might need to consult a simpler secondary source

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because this type of material can often explain concepts in a way that is maybe easier to understand.

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Now, in some cases, the solution might be pretty obvious.

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You know, if we're talking about a knowledge gap,

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for example, that might just mean looking up important terms

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or maybe just familiarizing yourself with abbreviations or maybe learning more about the history of how those ideas develop.

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Consulting articles or shorter introductory texts would also be a good idea here.

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So I've talked about the importance of deep reading before and how it helps comprehension and memory.

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So at this stage, you're not just reading,

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you're working through the book and processing the information in these small sort of controlled steps.

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So for example, as you're reading,

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you'll want to identify a section.

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And this could be a single paragraph,

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or it could be a page,

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or it could be perhaps a few pages,

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or maybe even an entire chapter.

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You want to read that section and then stop.

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And before moving on, just try to do two things.

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So first, restate what you write in your own words,

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because if you can't explain it simply,

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then you probably don't understand it.

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Second, identify what role that section is playing.

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Is the author defining a term?

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Are they giving an example?

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Or are they comparing something?

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Or are they trying to show a cause and effect relationship?

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And you can do this in the margins,

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or you can write in a notebook.

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That doesn't matter.

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In fact, you don't even necessarily have to save it.

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The main point here is that you need a way to think about and process what you're reading.

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You need to be able to connect it to something that you already know and then produce something with it.

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short summary or sometimes even just a quick note is really all you need.

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At this point, you've done most of the heavy lifting,

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but with difficult books, there are inevitably going to be places that you'll need to go back and refine your understanding.

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Now, that might mean rereading sections or even going back to earlier chapters once you've seen more of the book.

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And don't be discouraged by this.

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Rereading is actually one of the main ways that you can deepen your understanding because each pass reveals something new.

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So for example, on the first reading,

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especially if the prose is really dense,

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it might be the case that all you're really doing is orienting yourself.

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Maybe you're just activating schema.

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But then once you do that with the next pass,

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you'll likely be able to start seeing the structure of the argument or the idea.

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And then with the next pass,

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you should be able to start integrating those ideas,

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maybe even clarifying earlier confusion.

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And you're not necessarily going back rereading the entire book.

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You're just focusing on areas that are needed.

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And yeah, all of the steps that I've talked about in this video,

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they're going to slow you down,

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and it does require a certain level of effort and attention.

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But that's not a bad thing.

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You know, the reward that you get from reading difficult books is different from reading books that are meant primarily for entertainment.

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With a lot of novels,

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much of the pleasure that you get from them,

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it comes from the forward movement,

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the pacing and the momentum of the story,

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that's part of the joy of reading them.

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And that's okay, that's the way those kinds of books are supposed to be read.

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But with difficult books, the reward is different.

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The reward comes from the clarity and the insight that you get from reading them.

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It's the small little time bombs that go off in your head as you're going about your life,

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going about your day, thinking about the things that you're reading about.

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And of course that requires slower, deeper focus.

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But it's absolutely something that you can do and I promise that if you give it a chance,

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it's something worth doing.

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