It has been suggested by some that the problem of our time, in American culture, in regards to reading can be summed up in this way: The issue is not so much one of illiteracy but aliteracy. It is not that people are not equipped to read. It is that they choose not to. And because they choose not to, they never become good at it.
Though he did not use the terms, C.S. Lewis shared his own analysis of how to differentiate literacy from aliteracy as he distinguish the marks of a good reader vs. a bad reader:
If this is you, then you are likely aliterate (bad readers):
1. You do not read books twice (or more than twice).
2. Reading is not your first choice. You’d rather be doing something else.
3. You don’t find books to be life-changing.
4. You don’t carry the knowledge and experience of your reading with you in your daily life.
Conversely, these are the marks of the literate (or good readers):
1. You regularly re-read books.
2. You’d rather be reading than doing most other things. You fight for time to read.
3. You have had such life-changing experiences in reading that “only experiences of love, religion, or bereavement can furnish a standard comparison.”
4. You find that things you have read are “constantly and prominently present” in your mind.
This is where the fight for literacy stands in our culture. We must not only teach our children (and adults) to read, we must teach them to be good readers, who profit from their reading.
Lewis makes these points in the chapter The Few and the Many in An Experiment in Criticism (Canto), pp. 1-4.
Then the idea is not to read many books but to read a select few over and over to gain the most insight while enjoying them more?
Also, would you recommend people to read those books that have the most influence over the ones that haven’t?. In other words, the books that have stood the test of time like the books in the western canon and take away chronological snobbery along the way.
I have a hard time not advancing forward after reading such a hefty book like the Lord of the rings and going and reading a different classic.
But are you proposing for readers to get in the habit to re read a book after they finish their first read?
I like this post by the way.
Okay, now that I just thought about what I wanted to say and ask.
What if it took me about a month to read the trilogy The Lord of The Rings and rather than starting a new book, it would be more profitable to spend another month in the same lord of the rings secondary world?
At this moment I’m trying to read Victorian fairy tales, in the defends of Sanity by Chesterton and 15 early stories by p.g. Wodehouse while daily scripture reading and theology reading. I’m making little progress in any of the three books above. Only a chapter a day at the most.
Do you read a couple books at once or just roche on one at a time?
Lewis doesn’t mean that you read every book twice, or that you only read a few books over and over and that’s it. We know that because he read a ton of books. I would recommend re-reading books that you like and that you think you will profit from re-reading.
I’ve read quite a few books twice, but there are only a few that I’ve read more than twice (maybe a dozen books or so), and those are books that I felt were extremely important for me. My personal reading routine pretty much always stays the same. I am usually reading several books at once. For the past couple of years I have tried to make sure that I am reading at least one theologically oriented book, one dealing with some cultural issue, and one fiction. But I also read poetry and fiction with my kids every day.
Back to the re-reading thing though. The Lord of the Rings is a great example. I read all three books straight through in a few weeks. I’ve never gone back and re-read the whole thing, but I have often gone back and re-read sections. Now that I know the story in general, I like to go back and look at details from time to time. I would honestly just recommend re-reading things that you’ve enjoyed or found to be especially helpful. For me, personally, for instance, I’ve read MLJ’s Preaching and Preachers straight through 3 times, but I also go back and read little sections over again from time to time. The same thing with Orthodoxy by Chesterton, and several of John Owen’s books, and the Narnia books. Those are the ones I find myself constantly going back to, but it because I really enjoy them and continue to profit from them. Hopefully, as I keep reading new books, I’ll find more in the future that will join the ranks.
Ya I think I will adopt this routine. I’m wanting to read Wayne Grudems systematic theology and I have a few fiction books already in line.
Could you list for example a book or two for the culture issues?
Thanks for the feedback! I like your consistency with the replies! It really makes a person to want to come back and read the posts and reread.
Would a culture issue be marriage? Or is culture more outside family issues?
Lately I have been reading a lot of books about technology and medicine (I see those as two big pastoral issues right now, and assume they will be for years to come). Marriage would certainly count as well, as would economics and government. I’ve been on a Malcolm Gladwell kick lately and have also read several books about our current mainstream use of technology (like email, cell phones, etc). So by ‘cultural,’ I don’t mean things that are necessarily controversial. I just mean things that are going on in the world around us in general.
And when I say that I am always reading something theological, I just want to make sure you know I’m not necessarily talking about systematic theology. I haven’t read a systematic theology straight through in a long time. I would consider a commentary, apologetic work, or Puritan work to be theology (I would even put a good bit of Lewis’ work in this category).