If one wishes to read a book to add to one’s mental furniture, one must read it with attention. I do not really believe it is necessary to take all the separate steps mentioned in How to Read a Book. In fact, I think there is one enormous emotion almost omitted—I mean love. Instead of reading as a task, why not read because we love the book, or love its subject, or love its author, or anyhow love reading?
— William Lyon Phelps, in a review of Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book (1940), as quoted by Alan Jacobs