CONDENSED FROM HOW TO READ A BOOK

BY MORTIMER ADLER

I. THE ANALYSIS OF A BOOK’S STRUCTURE

1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.

2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity.
3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and analyze these parts as you
have analyzed the whole.
4. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve.

II. THE INTERPRETATION OF A BOOK’S CONTENTS

I. Come to terms with the author by interpreting his basic words.

2. Grasp the author's leading propositions through dealing with his most important
sentences.
3. Know the author's arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of,
sequences of sentences.
4. Determine which of his problems the author solved, and which he did not; and of the
latter, decide which the author knew he failed to solve.

III. THE CRITICISM OF A BOOK AS COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE

A. General Maxims

1. Do not begin criticism until you have completed analysis and interpretation. (Do not
say you agree, disagree, or suspend judgment, until you can say, "I understand.")
2. Do not disagree disputatiously or contentiously.
3. Respect the difference between knowledge and opinion, by having reasons for any
critical judgment you make.

B. Specific Criteria for Points of Criticism

1. Show wherein the author is uninformed.

2. Show wherein the author is misinformed.
3. Show wherein the author is illogical.
4. Show wherein the author's analysis or account is incomplete.
 Published Great Books of the Western World

Homer. Iliad, Odyssey

The Old Testament
Aeschylus. Tragedies
Sophocles. Tragedies
Herodotus. History
Euripides. Tragedies
Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War
Hippocrates. Medical Writings
Aristophanes. Comedies
Plato. Dialogues
Aristotle. Works
Epicurus. 'Letter to Herodotus';'Letter to Menoecus'
Euclid. Elements
Archimedes. Works
Apollonius. Conic Sections
Cicero. Works
Lucretius. On the Nature of Things
Virgil. Works
Horace. Works
Livy. History of Rome
Ovid. Works
Plutarch. Parallel Lives; Moralia
Tacitus. Histories; Annals; Agricola; Germania
Nicomachus, Gerasa of. Introduction to Arithmetic
Epictetus. Discourses; Encheiridion
Ptolemy. Almagest
Lucian. Works
Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations
Galen. On the Natural Faculties
The New Testament
Plotinus. The Enneads
Augustine, St.. On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
The Song of Roland
The Nibelungenlied
The Saga of Burnt Njal
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica
Alighieri, Dante. The New Life; On Monarchy; The Divine Comedy
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
Vinci, Leonardo da. Notebooks
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
Erasmus, Desiderius. The Praise of Folly
Copernicus, Nicolaus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
More, Sir Thomas. Utopia
Luther, Martin. Table Talk; Three Treatises
Rabelais, Francois. Gargantua and Pantagruel
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion
Montaigne, Michel de. Essays
Gilbert, William. On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote
Spenser, Edmund. Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
Bacon, Francis. Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
Shakespeare, William. Poetry and Plays
Galilei, Galieo. The Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
Kepler, Johannes. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World
Harvey, William. On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the
Blood; On the Generation of Animals
Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan
Descartes, Rene. Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry;
Meditations on First Philosophy
Milton, John. Works
Moliere. Comedies
Pascal, Blaise. The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
Huygens, Christiaan. Treatise on Light
Spinoza, Benedict de. Ethics
Locke, John. Letter Concerning Toleration; 'Of Civil Government'; Essay Concerning Human
Understanding; Thoughts Concerning Education
Racine, Jean Baptiste. Tragedies
Newton, Isaac. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von. Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human
Understanding; Monadology
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe
Swift, Jonathon. A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal
Congreve, William. The Way of the World
Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge
Pope, Alexander. Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de. Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws
Voltaire. Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
Johnson, Samuel. The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets
Hume, David. Treatise on Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political; An Inquiry Concerning
Human Understanding
Rousseau, Jean Jaques. On the Origin of Inequality; On the Political Economy; Emile, The Social
Contract
Sterne, Laurence. Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of
Morals; Critique of Practical Reason; The Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual
Peace
Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography
Boswell, James. Journal Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D.
Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent. Elements of Chemistry
Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander. Federalist Papers
Bentham, Jeremy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust; Poetry and Truth
Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph. Analytical Theory of Heat
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit; Philosophy of Right; Lectures on the
Philosophy of History
Wordsworth, William. Poems
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poems; Biographia Literaria
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice; Emma
Clausewitz, Karl von. On War
Stendhal. The Red and the Black; The Charterhouse of Parma; On Love
Byron, George Gordon, Lord. Don Juan
Schopenhauer, Arthur. Studies in Pessimism
Faraday, Michael. Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity
Lyell, Charles. Principles of Geology
Comte, Auguste. The Positive Philosophy
Balzac, Honore de. Pere Goriot; Eugenie Grandet
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Representative Men; Essays; Journal
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America
Mill, John Stuart. A System of Logic; On Liberty; Representative Government; Utilitarianism;
The Subjection of Women; Autobiography
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species; The Descent of Man; Autobiography
Dickens, Charles. Works
Bernard, Claude. Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience; Walden
Marx, Karl. Capital
Eliot, George. Adam Bede; Middlemarch
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick; Billy Budd
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary; Three Stories
Ibsen, Henrik. Plays
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace; Anna Karenina; What is Art?; Twenty-Three Tales
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Mysterious Stranger
James, William. The Principles of Psychology; The Varieties of Religious Experience;
Pragamatism; Essays in Radical Empiricism
James, Henry. The American; The Ambassadors
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Beyond Good and Evil; The Geneology
of Morals; The Will to Power
Poincare, Jules Henri. Science and Hypothesis; Science and Method
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams; Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis;
Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Shaw, George Bernard. Plays and Prefaces
Planck, Max. Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?;
Scientific Autobiography
Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Creative Evolution; The Two Sources
of Morality and Religion
Dewey, John. How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience and Nature; Logic; the
Theory of Inquiry
Whitehead, Alfred North. An Introduction to Mathematics; Science and the Modern World; The
Aims of Education and Other Essays; Adventures of Ideas
Santayana, George. The Life of Reason; Skepticism and Animal Faith; Persons and Places
Lenin, Nikolai. The State and Revolution
Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past
Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy; The Analsysis of Mind; An Inquiry into Meaning
and Truth; Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits
Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain; Joseph and His Brothers
Einstein, Albert. The Meaning of Relativity; On the Method of Theoretical Physics, Physics; The
Evolution of.
James Joyce, 'The Dead' in Dubliners; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses
Maritain, Jaques. Art and Scholasticism; The Degrees of Knowledge; The Rights of Man and
Natural Law; True Humanism
Kafka, Franz. The Trial; The Castle
Toynbee, Arnold. A Study of History; Civilization on Trial
Sartre, Jean Paul. Nausea; No Exit; Being and Nothingness
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.. The First Circle; The Cancer Ward
 Mortimer Adler’s Great Books List (with Personal Revison)

The New Testament

The Nibelungenlied
The Old Testament
The Saga of Burnt Njal
The Song of Roland

Aeschylus. Tragedies
Alighieri, Dante. On Monarchy
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy
Alighieri, Dante. The New Life
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica
Archimedes. Works
Aristophanes. Comedies
Aristotle. Works
Arnold, Eberhard, Innerland
Augustine, St. City of God
Augustine, St. Confessions
Augustine, St. On Christian Doctrine
Augustine, St. On the Teacher
Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations
Austen, Jane. Emma
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice
Bacon, Francis. Novum Organum, New Atlantis
Bacon, Francis. Essays; Advancement of Learning
Balzac, Honore de. Eugenie Grandet
Balzac, Honore de. Pere Goriot
Bentham, Jeremy. Theory of Fictions
Bentham, Jeremy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Bergson, Henri. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution
Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory
Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will
Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge
Bernard, Claude. Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
Boswell, James. Journal Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D.
Byron, George Gordon, Lord. Don Juan
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde
Cicero. Works
Clausewitz, Karl von. On War
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poems
Comte, Auguste. The Positive Philosophy
Congreve, William. The Way of the World
Copernicus, Nicolaus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Darwin, Charles. Autobiography
Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe
Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy
Descartes, Rene. Discourse on the Method
Descartes, Rene. Geometry
Descartes, Rene. Rules for the Direction of the Mind
Dewey, John. Democracy and Education
Dewey, John. Experience and Nature
Dewey, John. How We Think
Dewey, John. Logic
Dewey, John. The Theory of Inquiry
Dickens, Charles. Works
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Idiot
Edersheim, Alfred, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
Einstein, Albert. On the Method of Theoretical Physics
Einstein, Albert. The Evolution of Physics
Einstein, Albert. The Meaning of Relativity
Eliot, George. Middlemarch
Eliot, George. Adam Bede
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journal
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Representative Men
Epictetus. Encheiridion
Epictetus. Discourses
Epicurus. 'Letter to Herodotus'
Epicurus. 'Letter to Menoecus'
Erasmus, Desiderius. The Praise of Folly
Euclid. Elements
Euripides. Tragedies
Faraday, Michael. Chemical History of a Candle
Faraday, Michael. Experimental Researches in Electricity
Fielding, Henry. Tom Jones
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews
Flaubert, Gustave. Three Stories
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary
Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph. Analytical Theory of Heat
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents
Freud, Sigmund. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams
Galen. On the Natural Faculties
Galilei, Galieo. Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
Galilei, Galieo. The Starry Messenger
Gerasa, Nicomachus of. Introduction to Arithmetic
Gibbon, Edward. Autobiography
Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Gilbert, William. On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Poetry and Truth
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust
Hamilton, Alexander, and John Jay, James MadisonFederalist Papers
Harvey, William. On the Circulation of the Blood
Harvey, William. On the Generation of Animals
Harvey, William. On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Philosophy of Right
Herodotus. History
Hippocrates. Medical Writings
Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan
Homer. Odyssey
Homer. Iliad
Horace. Works
Hume, David. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Hume, David. Essays Moral and Political
Hume, David. Treatise on Human Nature
Huygens, Christiaan. Treatise on Light
Ibsen, Henrik. Plays
Illich, Ivan, Deschooling Society
James, Henry. The Ambassadors
James, Henry. The American
James, William. Essays in Radical Empiricism
James, William. Pragamatism
James, William. The Principles of Psychology
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience
Johnson, Samuel. Dictionary
Johnson, Samuel. The Lives of the Poets
Johnson, Samuel. Rasselas
Johnson, Samuel. The Vanity of Human Wishes
Joyce, James. Dubliners
Joyce, James. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Joyce, James. Ulysses
Kafka, Franz. The Castle
Kafka, Franz. The Trial
Kant, Immanuel. Perpetual Peace
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason
Kant, Immanuel. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
Kant, Immanuel. The Science of Right
Kepler, Johannes. Concerning the Harmonies of the World
Kepler, Johannes. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent. Elements of Chemistry
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von. Discourse on Metaphysics
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von. Monadology
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von. New Essays Concerning Human Understanding
Lenin, Nikolai. The State and Revolution
Livy. History of Rome
Locke, John. Thoughts Concerning Education
Locke, John. Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Locke, John. Letter Concerning Toleration
Locke, John. Of Civil Government
Lucian. Works
Lucretius. On the Nature of Things
Luther, Martin. Three Treatises
Luther, Martin. Table Talk
Lyell, Charles. Principles of Geology
Machiavelli, Niccolo. Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince
Mann, Thomas. Joseph and His Brothers
Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain
Maritain, Jacques. Art and Scholasticism
Maritain, Jacques. The Degrees of Knowledge
Maritain, Jacques. The Rights of Man and Natural Law
Maritain, Jacques. True Humanism
Marx, Karl. Capital
Melville, Herman. Billy Budd
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick
Mill, John Stuart. A System of Logic
Mill, John Stuart. Autobiography
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty
Mill, John Stuart. Representative Government
Mill, John Stuart. The Subjection of Women
Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism
Milton, John. Works
Moliere. Comedies
Montaigne, Michel de. Essays
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de. Spirit of Laws
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de. Persian Letters
More, Sir Thomas. Utopia
Newton, Isaac. Optics
Newton, Isaac. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Will to Power
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Beyond Good and Evil
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Geneology of Morals
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Ovid. Works
Pascal, Blaise. Pensees
Pascal, Blaise. Scientific Treatises
Pascal, Blaise. The Provincial Letters
Perga, Apollonius of. Conic Sections
Planck, Max. Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory
Planck, Max. Scientific Autobiography
Planck, Max. Where Is Science Going?
Plato. Dialogues
Plotinus. The Enneads
Plutarch. Moralia
Plutarch. Parallel Lives
Poincare, Jules Henri. Science and Method
Poincare, Jules Henri. Science and Hypothesis
Pope, Alexander. Essay on Man
Pope, Alexander. Rape of the Lock
Pope, Alexander. Essay on Criticism
Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past
Ptolemy. Almagest
Rabelais, Francois. Gargantua and Pantagruel
Racine, Jean Baptiste. Tragedies
Rousseau, Jean Jaques. The Social Contract
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Origin of Inequality
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. On the Political Economy
Russell, Bertrand. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth
Russell, Bertrand. Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits
Russell, Bertrand. The Analsysis of Mind
Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy
Santayana, George. Persons and Places
Santayana, George. The Life of Reason; Skepticism and Animal Faith
Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness
Sartre, Jean Paul. No Exit
Sartre, Jean Paul. Nausea
Schopenhauer, Arthur. Studies in Pessimism
Shakespeare, William. Poetry and Plays
Shaw, George Bernard. Plays and Prefaces
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.. The Cancer Ward
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.. The First Circle
Sophocles. Tragedies
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene
Spenser, Edmund. Prothalamion
Spinoza, Benedict de. Ethics
Stendhal. On Love
Stendhal. The Charterhouse of Parma
Stendhal. The Red and the Black
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
Sterne, Laurence. Tristram Shandy
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels
Swift, Jonathan. Journal to Stella
Swift, Jonathon. A Modest Proposal
Swift, Jonathon. A Tale of a Tub
Tacitus, Agricola
Tacitus, Germania
Tacitus, Annals
Tacitus, Histories
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience
Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America
Tolstoy, Leo. Twenty-Three Tales
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace
Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art?
Toynbee, Arnold. Civilization on Trial
Toynbee, Arnold. A Study of History
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Mark. The Mysterious Stranger
Vinci, Leonardo da. Notebooks
Virgil. Works
Voltaire. Candide
Voltaire. Philosophical Dictionary
Voltaire. Letters on the English
Whitehead, Alfred North. Adventures of Ideas
Whitehead, Alfred North. An Introduction to Mathematics
Whitehead, Alfred North. Science and the Modern World
Whitehead, Alfred North. The Aims of Education and Other Essays
Wordsworth, William. Poems