Turn Every Page: Engage What You Are Reading

If you do not engage with and record what you read, how do you expect to grow in knowledge? When I set out to read 60 books each year, it is not a strictly numerical goal. It is, rather, an attempt to learn something about the world that I did not know—perhaps even to learn something about myself. It does me no good if I read books simply to check them off a list if I cannot explain something about each book when I’m done.

When I was in college, there was a graduate student from France named Xavier who lived in my dorm. He already had a PhD in philosophy from a European university and he was pursuing another PhD, this time in theology. One day at a meal, I saw Xavier reading pages of notes and asked him whether they were for a class. I was making small talk. He explained that they were his notes on the last book he finished. (There were probably 15 pages of single-spaced notes.) When I asked whether he did that with every book he read for his PhD work, he looked at me incredulously: “Of course I do. How else will I know what I have read?”

That conversation forever changed the way that I engage material. My habit until then had been to read something in order to say that I had read it. It was good for cocktail parties—“Oh yes, I’ve read [insert esoteric book here]”—but it was not good for me as a person. I “read” books insofar as I saw all the words from Page 1 to the end, but I did not “read” in the sense that I understood, digested, or made my own the material I was reading.

Xavier’s straightforward approach was to write down quotes or major themes from the book he was reading and then to add his own commentary or questions. Sometimes his packets of notes would read more like an essay, demonstrating that he had really incorporated the book into his own thinking. Other times, it was a series of quotes with some explanatory phrases attached. In either case, the point was that he was engaging the material in a way that would solidify it in his mind and help him see where one book fit in the constellation of other books he was reading. He was an active reader, an “analytical reader” in Mortimer Adler’s terminology. But engaging in that way with the material, and given his many years of academic work, Xavier was also, using Adler again, a syntopical reader. He could connect the particular book he was reading with other books and authors in the field as well as across subject areas.

In fact, Xavier told me a funny story once that demonstrated the power of his analytical and syntopical reading. In a class the previous semester, he “did not like” the essay question on a final exam, so he decided in his blue answer book to (1) tell the professor that it was not a good question, (2) explain to the professor what the question should have been, and (3) proceed to answer the new question he wrote for himself. He got an A.

As a rule-following undergraduate not used to deep reading, I was shocked. But Xavier already had one doctorate, had already taught at the same level as his professor, and was likely just as well read. But making up his own exam question during the exam took more hutzpah than I could imagine. For Xavier, it seemed fitting that someone should point out when a question is the wrong question and proceed to answer the right one.

I’m not suggesting that students should ignore exam questions or that we should endlessly reframe others’ questions. But there is an important lesson in why Xavier felt able to do that in the first place. If he had not spent a decade or more in analytical reading of academic texts, Xavier may not have had the courage to tell the professor that his question was off base. I think the key to Xavier’s understanding of the material came from the breadth of his reading and, more importantly, how he engaged with what he was reading.

Sönke Ahrens’s book, How to Take Smart Notes (Ahrens 2022), describes one particular way of engaging with what you read. The Zettelkasten or “slip box” is a system pioneered by Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist. Luhmann was incredibly prolific, publishing more than 70 books and 400 hundred articles on a variety of topics over a 30-year career. The system was conceptually simple—make simple notes over time, and catalog the connections between the ideas on the notes. As described by Ahren, “[w]henever [Luhmann] read something, he would write the bibliographic information on one side of the card and make brief notes about the content on the other side.” (18) The notes described Luhmann’s own understanding or criticism of the work. These notes were the vehicle for Luhmann to engage with the material. “Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else: Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible.” (24) Then, after you have your notes, organize them in a coherent manner that shows the connections between and among topics.

Writing the notes is not the end goal, but it is one way to help you learn deeply. “Writing notes accompanies the main work and, done right, it helps with it. Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have.” (22) Having a reservoir of topical notes will allow for serendipitous connections between things we read. “Spending the little extra time to add them to your system will make all the difference, because the accidental encounters make up the majority of what we learn.” (27)

When I wrote my graduate thesis in philosophy, I used an electronic card system similar to Ryan Holiday’s analog version. But whether you use a Zettelkasten approach, a plain .txt file, or a more elegant note-taking program like Evernote, engaging on a deeper level is with what you read is essential to retaining the information and making connections across things you read. Making those connections is really one of the great joys of reading broadly across disciplines. Don’t deprive yourself of one of reading’s greatest benefits.

Remember to turn every page. Enjoy your weekend. Please let me know whether you need anything.

Best,

Aaron