March 9th, 2010
Are You Reading a Book? Don’t Continue Until You…
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Are You Reading a Book? Don’t Continue Until You…”.
It’s pretty funny (or sad) that the group asked that question. It’s pretty obvious they didn’t even do some basic preparation in reading the book. I thought it was painfully obvious what the purpose of the books was, as you show in the paragraph from the intro.
Maybe their professor required the group to ask that question to every author they interview?
As far as your overall advice, though, you’re right that we should definitely know why the author wrote the book before we dig into the text. I’m not sure that every book is as overt as you are in stating the purpose.
Thanks for the post!
One of the first requirements of graduate school should be understanding how to read a book -seriously! Since my childhood days when my parents took me to the library in a neighboring town every two weeks to check out the maximum 15 books allowed, I have been a reader. Through undergraduate and graduate schools and beyond, I have read books. Now 30 years later, I read at an even higher level – but I don’t read all books the same way.
Curiosity drives me to read widely on a range ot topics, but with the same central goal: what can the church learn from this topic? Right now I’m working through books by an engineer, a surgeon, a bread baker, and choreographer – and all have something for the church.
Will is right – read with intentionality to discover the author’s purpose – and then apply it to your passion.
[...] leadership of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. At the same time, my recent post on knowing the one sentence summary of what you are reading, started some interesting conversations. So, on my flight to Utah for spring break, after my [...]