Malc
To paraphrase Dr. Doofenshmirtz: If I had a nickel for every author I've read who's been associated with both Bethlehem Seminary and Canon Press, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's interesting that they're both excellent Christian authors.
Naselli provides in this book good, practical reading advice from a thoroughly Christian worldview. I brought 6 main takeaways from this read:
- You can skim some books, read some quickly, and read still others in close detail. All of these constitute "reading". There's no need to understand every sentence of every book you read, and obligating yourself to that is a great way to kill the joy of reading.
- When you do read a book in detail (micro-reading), going over the same text again and again can unveil lots of detailed meaning and really help things stick. In my experience, this is particularly useful when reading Scripture.
- Read old books. In fact, read a lot of old books. Maybe even read more old books than you do new books. In Naselli's view, this helps prevent chronological snobbery. This seems like a solid idea that would help prevent ideologically siloing ourselves in recent times only. However, it seems difficult to put into practice.
- Read fiction. This is closely related to Naselli's point about reading for pleasure. Even for adults, stories are good things to immerse ourselves in. After all, we all find ourselves in the one great story, so it's good and natural that we are drawn to secondary ones. Reading nothing but dry, practical literature seems to me another great way to kill the joy of reading. It occurs to me that perhaps the most natural way that adults find themselves reading fiction is when they read it with their children, who pull us back into such novels just as soon as we've substituted Lord of the Rings for Atomic Habits.
- Use Zotero. This point came from the excellent appendices of this book. I've been wondering how best to catalog and organize my household library, and so far this software seems great for it.
- Use ordered lists for clarity. :^)
The only thing I can really criticize this book for is 1) being a drier, less interesting read, and 2) being not well-suited for the audiobook format, which I read it on. The first point probably cannot be helped all that much, although I have certainly read practical books that I expected to be dry but surprised me. The second can be prevented by reading the physical book instead. I see this work as something to go back to and reference, and as Naselli himself says, audiobooks are hard to study.
On a final note, Naselli's love for God and for pure wisdom radiates through this entire book. I get a similar impression when reading Joe Rigney, which for me is a huge compliment because Rigney is one of my favorite authors, full-stop. It is really nice to read someone who embodies personal discipline and piety, which are virtually nowhere to be found in the nonstop indulgent babbling of online social platforms. In a way, this book reigned me in from reading so much of that, and reminded me that Christian authors with righteous character should be the majority of my reading. Plus, this review ended up being much longer than I intended, which hopefully says something good about this book rather than something about indulgent writing of my own.
To paraphrase Dr. Doofenshmirtz: If I had a nickel for every author I've read who's been associated with both Bethlehem Seminary and Canon Press, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's interesting that they're both excellent Christian authors.
Naselli provides in this book good, practical reading advice from a thoroughly Christian worldview. I brought 6 main takeaways from this read:
- You can skim some books, read some quickly, and read still others in close detail. All of these constitute "reading". There's no need to understand every sentence of every book you read, and obligating yourself to that is a great way to kill the joy of reading.
- When you do read a book in detail (micro-reading), going over the same text again and again can unveil lots of detailed meaning and really help things stick. In my experience, this is particularly useful when reading Scripture.
- Read old books. In fact, read a lot of old books. Maybe even read more old books than you do new books. In Naselli's view, this helps prevent chronological snobbery. This seems like a solid idea that would help prevent ideologically siloing ourselves in recent times only. However, it seems difficult to put into practice.
- Read fiction. This is closely related to Naselli's point about reading for pleasure. Even for adults, stories are good things to immerse ourselves in. After all, we all find ourselves in the one great story, so it's good and natural that we are drawn to secondary ones. Reading nothing but dry, practical literature seems to me another great way to kill the joy of reading. It occurs to me that perhaps the most natural way that adults find themselves reading fiction is when they read it with their children, who pull us back into such novels just as soon as we've substituted Lord of the Rings for Atomic Habits.
- Use Zotero. This point came from the excellent appendices of this book. I've been wondering how best to catalog and organize my household library, and so far this software seems great for it.
- Use ordered lists for clarity. :^)
The only thing I can really criticize this book for is 1) being a drier, less interesting read, and 2) being not well-suited for the audiobook format, which I read it on. The first point probably cannot be helped all that much, although I have certainly read practical books that I expected to be dry but surprised me. The second can be prevented by reading the physical book instead. I see this work as something to go back to and reference, and as Naselli himself says, audiobooks are hard to study.
On a final note, Naselli's love for God and for pure wisdom radiates through this entire book. I get a similar impression when reading Joe Rigney, which for me is a huge compliment because Rigney is one of my favorite authors, full-stop. It is really nice to read someone who embodies personal discipline and piety, which are virtually nowhere to be found in the nonstop indulgent babbling of online social platforms. In a way, this book reigned me in from reading so much of that, and reminded me that Christian authors with righteous character should be the majority of my reading. Plus, this review ended up being much longer than I intended, which hopefully says something good about this book rather than something about indulgent writing of my own.