Guides
How to read a difficult book
Some books are hard because they are dense, old or far from what you usually read. They are often the ones that stay with you longest. Here is how to read them without losing heart, and how to tell when it is fine to stop.
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Look at the whole book first
Before reading page one, spend ten minutes on the book as a whole: the contents, the introduction, the first and last paragraphs of a few chapters. In their classic How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren call this inspectional reading. You learn what the book is trying to do, and the hard parts have somewhere to fit.
With a novel, skip anything that gives away the plot, but a short introduction about when and where it was written still helps.
Expect to read slowly
A dense book can take far longer per page than a light one, and that is not a sign that something is wrong. Plan for it: shorter sessions, fewer pages, more days. Twenty focused minutes of a hard book often do more than an exhausted hour.
In Pagetime, the estimate of how long a book has left uses your sessions with that book, so after a few sessions it reflects how fast you actually read it, not how fast you read thrillers. The guide on how many pages you can read in an hour explains the arithmetic.
Mark what you do not understand, and keep going
When a passage loses you, put a question mark in the margin and read on. Many difficulties clear up a few pages later, once the author gets to the point. Come back to the question marks at the end of the chapter. The guide on how to annotate a book has a simple system.
Sum up each chapter in two sentences
After each chapter, close the book and write what it said in your own words. If you cannot, reread the chapter’s first and last pages. These short summaries are what you will rely on when the book refers back to an earlier idea, and they help you remember it later; the guide on how to remember what you read explains why.
Talk it over
Hard books are easier in company. A friend, a reading group or an online discussion of the same book can untangle a passage in a few minutes.
Know the difference between hard and wrong
Some difficulty is the point of the book. But if, after a few chapters, you still dread every session and get nothing from it, the book may not be for you right now. It is fine to put it aside; the guide on when to stop reading a book covers how to decide.
The free version holds up to 5 books and includes 20 page scans with text recognition in total. Deleting a note does not restore a used scan. Notes and the timer work offline without an account; sync is free after signing in. A subscription removes the book and scan limits and unlocks your full stats history, year in review and folder export. Pagetime is coming to iPhone and Android; you can leave your email below to hear when it is available. Until then, a pencil and two sentences per chapter will carry you a long way.
This independent guide is published by Pagetime and is not authorized, sponsored or endorsed by Apple Inc. or Google LLC.
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