I've put down i six nonlectures to read Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book. While i'm not looking to be too well read, I would rather have read a few books well. So if given only a few choices, this book would be near the top of my list. It is an essential reference for being a stronger learner and a more receptive and active thinker.

What I've been gleaning is absolutely invaluable such as learning how to understand the difference between increasing your information and increasing your understanding. They are far from the same, although competitively equal in value. For example, while you can gain information through the acquisition of facts, it does not mean that you are understanding more. In fact your understanding remains the same, unleavened, if you do not learn the facts and their significance. Reading, as Adler defines, is "the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help from outside, elevates itself by the power of its own operations. The mind passes from understanding less to understanding more. The operations which cause this to happen are the various acts which constitute the art of reading." So to come to an understanding is an active effort that is in actuality a very powerful and empowering culmination of oneself.

In coining what makes a good book, Ernest Hemingway also touches on the experience of understanding the written word, "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer."

Basically, I can't put this book down. This experience of understanding is clearly not limited to reading. I feel so lucky to have know the gift of art, to have felt like I was a receiver at a few points in my life.