How Tyler Cowen reads a classic

[Robert Mahnke]

Here is my preferred method:


1. Read a classic work straight through, noting key problems and
ambiguities, but not letting them hold you back.  Plow through as needed,
and make finishing a priority.


1b. Mark up the book with bars and questions marks, but don’t bother
writing out your still-crummy thoughts.  That will slow you down.


2. After finishing the classic, read a good deal of the secondary
literature, keeping in mind that you now are looking for answers to some
particular questions.  That will structure and improve your investigation.
But do not read the secondary literature first.  You won’t know what
questions will be guiding you, plus it may spoil or bias your impressions
of the classic, which is likely richer and deeper than the commentaries on
it.


3. Go back and reread said classic, taking as much time as you may need.
If you don’t finish this part of the program, at least you have read the
book once and grappled with some of its problems, and taken in some of its
commentators.  If you can get through the reread, you’ll then have achieved
something.


4. I am an advocate of the “close in time” reread, not the “several years
later” reread.  The several years later reread works best when it has been
preceded by a close in time reread, otherwise you tend to forget lots, or
never to have learned it to begin with, and the later reread may be more
akin to starting a new book altogether.


5. If you want to find new things in books you already know and love, opt
for new editions, new translations, and new typesettings where you will
encounter it as a very different visual and conceptual field.


Full post at: http://marginalrevolution.com/#sthash.xshOfzug.dpuf
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