How to Keep Awake While Reading

No matter how engrossed I can be by a book when I'm sitting on the train or the sofa, if I try to read it in bed I rarely make it longer than 10 minutes before I pass out. I wake up at 4 am, still dressed and lights blazing, with a book crumpled next to me probably about once a month and it's a disorienting experience I'd prefer to avoid. Dr. Mortimer J. Adler limits his advice to books "with which the movies cannot compete", but I'd have the same problem with an Archie digest so a few tweaks will be in order to suit my needs.

The art of reading consists in the habit of asking the right questions in the right order. Let me illustrate this by giving you the four main questions you must ask about any book or, to make it more concrete, about any nonfiction book.

• What is the book as a whole about? Here you must try to discover the leading theme of the books. And how the author develops this theme in an orderly way by subdividing it into its essential subordinate topics.
• What in detail is being said, and how? Here you must try to underline for yourself -- with a pencil, perhaps, or mentally if the book is borrowed -- the main ideas, assertions, and arguments that constitute the author's message.
• Is it true, in whole or part? You cannot answer this question until you have answered the first two. You have to know what is being said -- and to do that you must know how it is being said, for you must be able to penetrate through the author's language of his mind -- before you can sit in judgment and decide whether you agree or disagree. When you do understand a point, however, you are obligated, if you are reading seriously, to make up your own mind. Knowing the author's is not enough.
• What of it? If the book has given you information, and especially if it is true, you must certainly ask about its significance. Why does the author think it is important to know these facts? If the book has not only informed you, but also enlightened you, it is still necessary to seek further enlightenment by asking what follows next, what is further implied or suggested.

The School of Life: How to Keep Awake While Reading