How to Get the Most Out of a Book.
Analytical Reading Tips from a PhD Student
How I read books has changed over the years, but one thing I wish I had known earlier in life was how to read analytically and get the most out of the books I read. We aren’t taught at school the magic of making literature work for us, of how much power the reader has in contorting the text to blend with how their brain works and get more out of the book than the author ever intended (huge shout-out to Roland Barthes for putting it far better than I ever could).
What Analytical Reading is (and is Not).
Most people dislike analytical reading because school teachers never explain the beauty of it properly. If I had a pound for every adult who made the joke, “Why were the curtains blue? Because it symbolised the author’s sadness. No, it didn’t; the curtains were just bloody blue!” I’d have a decent chunk of my doctorate paid off for me.
Analytical reading isn’t about reading things into the text that the author never intentionally put there for the sake of putting words into the author’s mouth or adding depth the author never intended there to be. Analytical reading is about transforming how the text can be read to add depth beyond what the author intended because that’s how literature changes the world and people’s lives; it’s about discovering how it could be read from different perspectives, philosophical standpoints and theoretical approaches because it offers a fascinating insight into human psychological, societal and cultural evolution. Analytical reading isn’t about assuming the author intended anything with what they wrote but rather exploring how the author can be interpreted and what that means for the evolution of the text over its lifetime.
How to Get The Most out of The Books You Read
How I read now as a PhD student differs greatly from how I read at school and during my Bachelor's and Master’s. However, some of the basic principles to getting the most out of my reading remain the same, so these tips should help anyone get more out of what they’re reading, regardless of whether they’re studying or reading for leisure.
Ask Yourself Why You’re Reading Something
Whether you’re reading a novel for personal leisure or a book for your studies, you should always come up with a “why” behind your decision that will go deeper than superficial reasons such as “because my book club chose it” or “because I have to for this module”.
Look at the book you’re about to read. Read the blurb and ask yourself why you may be interested, or not interested, in reading this book. Are there elements about the book that pique your interest, like the subject matter, the jobs the character has, or the time period it focuses on, or are there elements such as these which put you off reading the book? Note all the things about the book that either pique your interest or discourage you from reading it – those can be some of your “why”s for reading the book. Whether you have positive or negative reactions to the book's details at face value, your motivation for reading can be as simple as proving yourself right or wrong with your assumptions. After all, you may be pleasantly surprised and have your concerns disproven, disappointed, fulfilled, or inspired to read more.
Other “why” reasons for reading a book which are more practical in nature, particularly when reading non-fiction, include a desire to learn more about the background of a subject, understand a theory or perspective more, confront and hear challenging or differing viewpoints, or uncover evidence to back up your own lived experiences or beliefs.Engage with the text through active reading.
Most of us know how to read casually. We do it daily: we casually read emails, texts, news articles online, the comment section and captions under images. You can read books the same way you read a text from a friend, but if you want to get more out of a book, you will need to engage with the text via active reading.
Active reading usually demands a pen or pencil, a notebook or sticky notes (based on personal preference) and the willingness to re-read and read slowly. For every article, chapter of a book or essay I read, I apply the steps of active reading, which are as follows:
a. I read through the section of the text once to get an overall impression at a slow-ish, careful speed. Here, I take note of the general structure of the chapter or essay, from natural breaks to subheadings, images or changes in narrative or location (if reading fiction).
b. During the first read, I underscore or mark any words of passages I don’t understand straight away and want to revisit. At this stage, I refrain from looking up anything.
c. After finishing my first read-through, I return to the beginning and read again a little faster, focusing on reaching the sections I highlighted or marked.
d. During my second read-through, I take notes of everything that caught my attention the first time, write down definitions of words I didn’t know, write questions I would like to answer about the section and highlight parts I enjoyed for their own sake.
e. if you’re studying the text for academic reasons, you will also find it useful to summarise the section in your own words to help you understand it or recall it better.
f. Finally, analyse what you read. Look at your notes and jot down questions you still have about what you read. It also really helps to talk about what you read with a friend or, if you don’t have anyone to talk to about it, write down your thoughts like a diary entry in a notebook.
Active reading requires more time and energy than casual reading, so don’t be upset if you read slower than you may want to (especially if you’re one of those who give yourself huge annual reading goals on Goodreads).
3. Reflect on the Book Critically.
After reading a text, reflect on what you’ve read critically by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the work. Analyse how it aligns with or goes against other similar texts you have read within its genre. Were there plot holes or gaps of information that weren’t addressed? Did you learn anything new whilst reading it, from new words to new concepts, ideas or perspectives? You can type up your thoughts on Notion or write them down on sticky notes you keep at the back of the book or in a notebook – wherever you prefer to store your knowledge.
4. How would you like to read the book?
After finishing a book, whether fiction or non-fiction, you always get the power to take the book into your own hands and ask yourself: how would I like this book to be seen? This is how academics approach literature: after reading a text and identifying themes and patterns, they create a personalised understanding of the text, which can be enriched with secondary research. Perhaps you read a text that had a prison scene in it, so you’d like to analyse from the context of prison systems in Victorian England, or maybe there was an autistic character in the book which you didn’t think was presented accurately, so you would like to look at the book from that perspective.
As I said at the beginning, people wrongly assume that reading analytically means forcing meanings and symbols into a text which the author never intended, but it’s not about that at all. Analytical reading is about inserting your thoughts, ideas and curiosities into a text and expounding upon that through discussion, research, and critical reading and analysis. It’s about getting the most out of a text for you because certain ideas, thoughts, symbols and images piqued your interest, and therefore, you would like to highlight those and spark wider discussion around them.
Final Thoughts.
Getting more out of the books you read requires patience, thoughtfulness and compassion for yourself and the text you’re reading. You don’t have to do this for every book you ever read; if you want to read something casually as you would a text or news article online, there is no harm in that, but sometimes, we come across a book that hits us hard in a way that makes us want to stop and savour the moment, and that is when reading analytically can bring a book to life in ways you would never have expected had you read it quickly and flippantly to mark off another book on your to-be-read list on Goodreads.
