Questions to Ask While Reading a Book
Questions for working through a book rather than a single article: what you want from it, what each chapter actually claimed, when to give up on it, and what to bring to a book club. Some are for the margins, some for after you close it.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Why did you pick this book up, and what do you want out of it?
Why ask it
A book read for pleasure, for a decision you are about to make, or because it was recommended calls for different attention and different notes. Naming the reason also lets you notice when the book stops serving it.
Looking at the contents page, what is the book trying to do overall?
Why ask it
Two minutes on the structure tells you which chapters are the argument and which are illustration. It also shows you the shape early, so a slow middle reads as a stretch of examples rather than a book falling apart.
What was the one claim of the chapter you just finished?
Why ask it
One sentence per chapter, written from memory, is enough to keep a book-length argument in view. If you cannot produce it, either the chapter was padding or you read it while thinking about something else.
What is the author assuming you already believe?
Why ask it
Books work by agreement, and the assumptions are usually in the opening chapter where they are hardest to see. Naming one lets you notice later that half the argument depended on it.
Which sentence on this page would you underline, and why that one?
Why ask it
Forcing a choice of one keeps you from highlighting whole paragraphs, which is the habit that makes notes useless. The why matters more than the sentence, and belongs in the margin next to it.
What does this connect to that you already know?
Why ask it
New material sticks when it is attached to something old, even loosely. A note that says this contradicts what that other book claimed is worth more later than a clean summary of this one.
Where did your attention drift, and what was happening on the page there?
Why ask it
Drift is usually a signal about the text: an over-long example, an unfamiliar term you skipped, or a section you did not need. Deciding which of those it was tells you whether to reread or to skim ahead.
What is the author not saying?
Why ask it
Look for the objection they never raise, the group whose experience is absent, or the cost they never total up. In book-length work these gaps are structural rather than accidental.
Which stories and examples are carrying the argument, and would it survive without them?
Why ask it
Anecdote does most of the persuading in popular nonfiction. Try restating the chapter with the stories removed; what remains is what the book has actually established.
What would the book's strongest critic say?
Why ask it
Constructing the best objection yourself, before looking for reviews, is the fastest way to find out whether you have understood the argument or only enjoyed it.
Where did you agree too quickly?
Why ask it
The passages that matched your existing view got the lightest reading. Going back to one of them and asking what it actually claims is where most of the value of a second pass sits.
Is this book still worth your time?
Why ask it
Ask it at a third of the way through and give yourself permission to stop. Finishing out of obligation costs you the book you would rather be reading, and the sunk cost is only a few evenings.
What would you try this week because of this?
Why ask it
One small action within days is what separates a book that changed something from a book you can name. If nothing suggests itself, the book may be interesting rather than useful, which is fine as long as you know it.
How would you explain the last chapter to a friend in two minutes, with the book closed?
Why ask it
Retrieval, not review, is what fixes something in memory. The parts where the explanation goes vague are exactly the parts to reread.
What do you want to ask someone else who has read this?
Why ask it
Keeping a running list of these turns a solitary read into a conversation and gives a book club somewhere to start beyond whether people liked it.
What did someone else notice that you walked straight past?
Why ask it
In a group this is the question worth going round the table on. Two readers rarely mark the same passages, and the difference usually says as much about the readers as the book.
Which part of this will still hold in five years, and which part will look dated?
Why ask it
Separating the durable argument from the current examples is a useful discipline, especially for books about technology, business or politics. It also tells you what is worth quoting later.
What did reading this make you want to read next?
Why ask it
Books point at other books, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by what they leave out. Following that thread is how a reading habit builds into knowing a subject rather than having read about it.
What will you keep from this book, and where will you put it so you find it again?
Why ask it
A note in a place you actually revisit is worth more than a shelf of annotated books. Decide the destination as you finish, because you will not come back to do it later.
If you had to cut a third of this book, what would go?
Why ask it
Sharpens your sense of what the book is really doing and makes you a better judge of the next one. It is also the most honest review you can give a friend who asks whether to read it.
Reading a whole book and keeping it
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
A workable system
- 1Before you start, skim the contents, the introduction and the conclusion, and write one line about what you want from the book.
- 2While reading, mark sparingly: one underline per page at most, with a few words in the margin saying why.
- 3At the end of each chapter, write one sentence from memory before you look back.
- 4At the end of the book, write a paragraph in your own words: the claim, the support, your objection, and one thing to try.
- 5Move that paragraph somewhere you will pass it again, with the title and date attached.
- 6A month later, try to say what the book argued without opening it, and reread only the chapters where you cannot.
Handling the middle of a book
Slow does not always mean bad
Many good books have a stretch of evidence or backstory that is doing necessary work. Skim it, note where it was, and keep going rather than abandoning the book in chapter six.
It is fine to stop
If the argument was made in the first fifty pages and the rest is repetition, take the argument and leave. Reading in order and to the end is a school habit, not a virtue.
Read two at once if that keeps you reading
One demanding and one easy, or one fiction and one not, often means more total pages read. The alternative is frequently a stalled book and no reading at all.
For a book club
Open with what people marked
Ask everyone to bring one passage and one question. It starts the discussion with specifics instead of a round of general verdicts, which is where these groups usually stall.
Give the dissenter room
The person who disliked the book has the most useful thing to say, and will not say it if the first four people were enthusiastic. Ask them early and directly.
Separate the book from the subject
Groups drift into talking about the topic in general, which is enjoyable and means nobody discusses what the author actually argued. Bring it back with a question about a specific chapter.
Finish with what changed
Go round once: one thing each person now thinks differently about, or one thing they will do. It is short, it makes the reading count, and it tells you what to pick next.