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In today’s age of information overload, the sheer volume of books can be overwhelming. Mortimer J. Adler’s reading hierarchy theory offers a smart way to deal with this. Summarizing books, reading summaries, and then choosing which ones to read in - depth is an ideal approach to quickly access the best reads.

Adler’s theory includes Elementary Reading, Analytical Reading, and Syntopical Reading. Summarizing a book helps us understand its basic meaning (Elementary Reading) and distill its key points (Analytical Reading). It’s a great way to grasp a book’s core content fast.

Reading summaries of different books is a time - saving strategy. It’s like previewing a buffet to pick the most appealing dishes. We can quickly figure out if a book suits our interests and needs. For instance, in the business world, with so many books on various topics, summaries can help us find the truly useful ones.

Once we’ve identified promising books from summaries, we can move on to Analytical Reading. This in - depth reading lets us fully engage with the book, understand its arguments, and evaluate its evidence.

This 15 - minute reading can help us discover new books. If we’re intrigued during this short read, we can read the book thoroughly. If not, we haven’t wasted much time.

I share my book summaries on my blog. I invite you to check them out. And if you have your own summaries, I’d love to read them. Let’s make reading more efficient and rewarding together!