WHILE you are in the stage of learning to read, you have to
go over a book more than once. If it is worth reading at all,
it is worth three readings at least.

Lest you become unduly alarmed at the demands that
are going to be made of you, let me hasten to say that the
expert reader can do these three readings at the same time.
What I have called "three readings" need not be three in
time. They are, strictly speaking, three in manner. They
are three ways of reading a book. To be well read, each
book should be read in these three ways each time it is read.
The number of distinct times you can read something
profitably depends partly on the book and partly on you
as a reader, your resourcefulness and industry.

Only at the beginning, I repeat, the three ways of read-
ing a book must be done separately. Before you become ex-
pert, you cannot coalesce a lot of different acts into one
complex, harmonious performance. You cannot telescope
the different parts of the job so that they run into one an-
other and fuse intimately. Each deserves your full attention
while you are doing it. After you have practiced the parts
separately, you not only can do each with greater facility
and less attention but you can also gradually put them to-
gether into a smoothly running whole.

I am saying nothing here which is not common knowl-

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