Gary Hoover

The Lifetime Learner's Guide to Reading and Learning

Nick Gracilla

Hoover, a bookseller, business historian, and entrepreneur, really writes three different mini books here. 

In the first book, Hoover lays out his reading methodology. He has a vast personal library of books, few of which he's read page by page. Instead, he's built up a method of "X-raying" books in 5 to 15 minutes, pulling out structure (from the table of contents, chapter headings, notes, and index) as well as key points and author positions. He's constantly interrogating the text: what is the author's point? What do I know about this subject already? What would I find surprising about this? 

I typically pay insufficient attention to a book's table of contents, and seldom anticipate the author's positions, so I find this method useful. It's especially valuable as I start reading shorter works in a foreign language, where a "word-for-word" reading of each line and page isn't the goal anyway. 

In Hoover's second section of this book, you'll find a vast and fascinating list of book recommendations — nearly all non-fiction, but across broad disciplines like architecture, history, culture, business, economics, and more. Turn to a bookseller and librarian to get great recommendations like these: I highlighted many, many sections for my 2022 reading list. 

In the third section — and most surprising to me — is Hoover's thoughts on creativity and innovation. Seeing "what others don't see" isn't easy; and so he sets out an approach to reading, thinking, and experiencing the world, and thinking about problems and solutions in different ways. His emphasis on cross-disciplinary solutions is especially fruitful, I think. Anyone involved in innovation efforts would find this section inspiring.

The Lifetime Learner's Guide to Reading and Learning

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